Blogs from Oceans and Seas - page 96

Geo: 12.1, -68.9167We're so smart - avoiding any islands in the Caribbean hurricane belt would ensure our little getaway would be unaffected by any severe weather, though there is still a high probability of some rain and clouds this time of year. But ... we weren't so smart after all, since our connecting flight through Miami was still subject to the whims of Mother Nature, and especially to the whims of her ugly stepdaughter, Hurricane Sandy. Oh, shit ...To be honest, neither of us was even paying attention to the weather forecast, since Curacao is rarely impacted by hurricanes to any significant degree. We had no idea what was going on until we checked into our Miami hotel at 1 AM, and asked the receptionist how far in advance of our morning flight we should arrive ... read more

Hello one more time from the Island Princess. We continued today on our cruise back to Florida. Earlier today they reported that we were about 50 minutes off the coast of Cuba. Anyway we should arrive on schedule. This morning we slept in until almost 8:00 – tomorrow will be a much earlier morning – so we wanted to be well rested at the end of our cruise. We went up to the breakfast buffet and had our usual breakfast. I guess we haven’t described that process as much as the dinners, so here’s our chance. Each person starts with a platter which is much larger than a full-sized dinner plate. There are virtually every kind of breakfast item you can imagine and you can take as much of everything as you want. Then you can ... read more

Waking up on the penultimate day, on opening the curtain it was evident that we were just coming out of a rain shower. In the remnant, a rainbow had appeared. However, this spectrum of light seemed to be our own private rainbow as it was just outside our cabin. Not C418 or C422, OUR cabin!! You could clearly see one end dipping into the briny although neither of us were prepared to swallow dive in to the Caribbean (no matter how inviting!) to see if we could find the pot of gold!! Like most entertainment on all cruise ships we have been on, the shows have been hit and miss. One of the shows that has definitely been a hit was 'On the Bayou'. This was a big enough production to be staged in the main ... read more

With all due respect, Ma’am If you have given any thought to your South Atlantic correspondent, you might have imagined him sitting in the shade of a banyan tree, wearing a strong fedora and sipping long gin and tonics to keep cool. Well, it hasn’t been quite like that – the weather has been damp, cloudy and cool for the past three months and, looking out of my window this Sunday morning, today doesn’t look set to be the first day of spring. Apparently there is a distinction to be made between a ‘tropical island’ and ‘an island in the tropics’. You will undoubted know which of these categories Saint Helena comfortably sits in. When I write ‘damp, cloudy and cool’ I might have written ‘wet, foggy and cold’ for, during the last couple of weeks, ... read more

Hello from the big blue Pacific ocean. Notice we did not include the words quiet or smooth. About 3:30 in the morning we sailed through a fairly big thunderstorm. We heard it and saw the lightening, but we didn’t get up to watch. Other did and described it as very heavy rain. We just went back to sleep. In the morning it was sunny again but this afternoon became overcast and periodically there were more showers. This has given us some “ship motion” that we really hadn’t had before. And it was a little cooler than yesterday’s near-90 temperature. Other than not getting any suntan, it wasn’t actually bad weather. We tried the deck-side breakfast bar this morning, but again it was just waffles, pancakes, and French toast. David grabbed a waffle and then we went ... read more