26C in shade today. 

Polynesia means many islands

Honolulu-very crowded

Fanning-an atoll. Policemen walk barefoot. Only can be reached by boat. Only 2 vehicles on the island. … is a tendering port. Very simple. All homes are on stilts with no walls

American Samoa..use reef shoes cuz beaches are coral not sand. Do not think that American phone plan works here or you’ll be in for big surprise.

Suva is in Fiji. 

Dravuni Island…. Only beaches but not good for snorkelling 

Lautoka.-free shuttle. 

Sauvusavu-Follow crew to find Wifi. another port in Fiji….beautiful

Tonga… only island nation that has kingdom. No beach nearby… take shuttle.  At bank… buy $7 Fijian bill. Blowhole on other side 

Niapu …. Beautiful scenery

Cook Islands…. Tender…. Beaches… independent shore excursions available. Snorkeling. Reef sharks are not aggressive and dangerous. 

Rarotonga…resorts…. Public transportation. Protectorate of NZ

Raiatea… capt. Cook’s favourite…. Black Pearls. Fr. Polynesia… speak French. Bread*….best outside of France. Some beaches but…

Bora Bora… most beautiful like you always see for Fr. Polynesia

Alberts… family 

Moorea… black tip shark… docile

Huahine… nothing … take shuttle or ship excursion

Tahiti… Papeete.. quite built up. … know conversion or use bank cards

Main islands don’t have very nice beaches

Fakarava… bicycles, kids have sharks as pets. Havaiki Lodge

Nuuk Hiva…… wood carvings. Language is very close to Hawaiian. 

Holland America cruise line’s Classes of ships…. 

R Class-1450 passenger … smallest with only 2 decks of verandas. Volendam and Zaandam

Vista class-5 decks of veranda 

1900 pass .. Noordan, Oosterdam, Westerdam, Zuiderdam -large volume of veranda suites

Signature class….. 2190 passengers….Eurodam, Noordam, Nieuw Amsterdam

Pinnacle class…2600 guests 

Koningsdam, Nieuw Statendam and Rotterdam. They only have showers, plus specialty Asian restaurant. There are units for solo travellers as units for families of up to 5 in staterooms. 

Winter in the north they head south

Spring… repositioning… only one flight … cheaper per day

Summer head to northern ports

Fall -Canada and repositioning

Cruise availability is based on demand and supply factor

Peak as opposites to non-peak… is cheaper

Class of ship…. 

Back to back are also cheaper when booked together

Location on ship… port or starboard, ends, centre 

Understand where the location is … price

Guaranteed 

Higher up on the ship, the lower the price because there is more rocking

They offer community appreciation under deals are only for future cruises

Promotions

“Get in the know”

132 day Jan. 4/26… grand world voyage on Volendam,  sounds interesting

Day 10-Oct 4/2-Tech for travellers

***There is some interesting info here, some of which is new to me.

Recommended apps:

When in port… Google Maps… very good planning app- shows bus stops,

shows busy area… 

Click on “Official site” if you want make sure of solid tickets being sold. 

“Save”- makes lists of what you’d like to see. 

“Share” for where you’ve been

“Directions”…screen shot all details before you go. 

Click on Profile picture where you are… gives all details of transits. 

Timeline to go to Offline maps… download

Wifi Map

Shows where wifi is available

Green colour- good, orange-mediocre, red-avoid

Sometimes it will show previous password so you don’t need to go in. .. copy, go to settings, enter password

Arrow into bucket before leaving home and phone signal. 

VPN…Nord, Advans or Norton antivirus 

Google Translate– needs you to download language beforehand 

 Click on speaker to hear

Pencil, also use to speak microphone 

Can translate using camera… or for translate later.. use “import”

“Rome to Rio”

Shows all taxis etc

“Currency Converter”… needs internet to work

“Google” can tell you what you looking at … search bar to take picture

Turn off data whenever travelling 

Online..RYOKO….. someone in audience mentioned this for cheap data

In order to be hired on to the ship you have to serve 4 years as a cadet at CSmart, a part of Carnival corporation in Netherlands. Then as in case of one of the officer, did 5 months on a  tanker.  First position once hired on to the ship you become 3rd officer then to 2nd officer, then to 1st officer. There are now 2 on this ship. Also a Bridge Manager, safety officer. Then staff captain… he is a 4 stripe. Finally the Captain. 

9 AB Helmsmen on board…2 on duty at a time. 

We are basically travelling in a straight direction for 5 days. They will change direction if there is a whale nearby. 

Pilot…. Knows the area by heart and so will guide the ship coming into port. 

Ever single action has to registered. 

Fastest speed is 22 knots  or 41 kph or 25mph. 

Ship can power all 25,000 homes on Kauai….

Sextant is not required anymore. Radar,paper chart, electronic axis. 

We got bored with the lecture so left. 

It’s 21C today(a couple of degrees warmer with grey skies…. The same as yesterday. 

We are at sea for a good number of days so I will not be posting much in the way of pictures of sites. So….will be sending info gleaned from lectures on board. I hope you aren’t too bored. A lot of the info I already knew but maybe for you as well, it will be all new.

Hawaiian Islands are the most isolated island group in the world…is north of equator 

The Pacific Ocean is 70 million square miles. It is 16-18,000 ft deep around Hawaii. 

It consists of 132 islands and atolls. 

The island of Hawaii was the last of the 8 major islands to be formed. 20 miles east is new island being born but has not yet pierced through surface of water.  

Volcanos in Hawaii are called shield volcanos. Kilauea volcano when it blew…. Spewed 30,000 ft into air. 

If lava is liquid, the flow is still full of gas. If the “lava” is crumbled yet moving, the gas has been dissipated. 

A sea cliff is a sign of catastrophic land fall. 

Kauai is oldest at 5 million years old. 

Oahu has over a million pop. 

Tsunamis travel at 500 miles per hour

Midway Island is under the protection of federal government 

Annual rainfall ranges from 175 inches at the mountains to 9 inches at shore  per year. It never drizzles for days but in short showers. 

They use no insulation or heating in their homes. 

The ocean temp ranges from 76-78 F. (24.5-25.5 C) year round. 

Mark Twain described the Hawaiian Islands as “The loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean”. 

9 stops- 2 hours

Marriott Marquis

1867-San Diego was referred to as Rabbitville. Alonso Horton paid $240 for 640 acres down by the waterfront that nobody wanted cuz all there was there was cacti and rabbits… 10,000 rabbits for each person

Gas lamp quarter … used to be bad part of San Diego

San Diego-Coronado Bridge is 248 ft high-2.4 miles long 

Naval base on the island. 27,000 population. There is no fresh water on Coronado Island. They have to pipe it in from San Diego. 

3.3 m dollar for the average home. 

1888 Hotel Del first all wooden, all electric hotel in North America

All shops storefront have to be different… quite cool. 

All navy seals have done training on this base. It was first for a whole lot of things aeronautical. 

Balboa Park – Kate Sessions schoolteacher turned master gardener known as the mother of Balboa Park. She asked the city for 30 acres to build greenhouses on the promise that she   would plant 100 trees per year. 

2,000,00 people showed up in San Diego for celebration for opening of Panama Canal at the 1915 Exposition. They were only expecting 600,000. Most never left. 

Average year round temperature is 78 degrees 

3 million pop. Average price of houses is almost 1 million dollar making it most expensive in America. 

Lindbergh Field is the name for the international airport. It only has 1 runway. It also has curfew…11:30pm to 6:30 am no planes can take off out of respect to the residences nearby. 

10 year waiting list to anchor sailboat in the harbour. 

Today we are doing a bus tour over the Golden Gate to Sausalito and later a ferry ride and tour of Alcatraz.

In the early days San Francisco, it was predominantly Catholic. Fishermen’s Wharf was run by the Italians. 

If there is any flat land, it is made of sand/silt. 90% of the city was destroyed in the earthquake of 1906, not by the earthquake itself but mostly it was from fires. They used fill from the rubble from earthquake to level ground to make the worlds fair of 1915. 

Tunnels are not through mountains but are bridges for wildlife to cross over the highway. 

As we cross the Golden Gate Bridge, you cannot see the top for the fog. The colour of the paint of the bridge by the way, is called “international orange”. It is actually primer & so is rust proof. Good thing cuz of the dampness from the fog most days. As we “turn the corner” from the bridge toward Sausalito, there is not a stitch of fog to be had… just beautiful blue skies. How can that be!!!

Sausalito originally was started as a Portuguese fishing village because the Italians wouldn’t allow the Portuguese into SF. The village is built on the hillside. It was built using steel pins driven into rock so the houses were safe from earthquakes. 

There are a lot  bikes lanes along the  Marina. It has a reputation for being kind of like bohemian place … it’s always been a place for artistic and adventurous types. Artistic types would come to Sausalito to escape the strait jacket of San Francisco culture. In the 60s people could live for free along the shore as long as they were sleeping on something that floated.  They would use wooden stoves to cook with on the floats. There were horrific fires, in one fire, 1210 vessels were destroyed.  To solve the problem they made water lots that they gave to the people. Some people, when presented with the opportunity to become a landowner, sold their water lots and made money. Once you owned the lot then people would have to have floating dwellings built that were up to code. Portuguese descendants are still involved in the building and the repairing of boats.

There is a big sandy beach, next to the old hippie beach that back in the 60s and early 70s was a nude beach. 

Coming back across the Golden Gate Bridge, that was still shrouded in fog, you can see the Palace of Fine Arts… the only building left from the Worlds Fair. It actually has been totally reproduced to the millimetre but is now 100% earthquake proof. 

The cable cars of Nob Hill ….were built for the really steep hills   By the late 1870s when it became fashionable to for the richest and wealthiest people to build at the top of Nob Hill, it was no longer fashionable to have quarters in your mansion for the help so they had to have some way to get there.  There were at one time, 17 different cable car lines.  One company didn’t care if they made any money on fares because they were making all the wire rope for all of the other cable car lines.  The cable cars are just simple old-fashioned mechanical are now at only two different locations in the Fishermans wharf district area. Those cars are pulled by one continuous loop of steel cable, a half inch thick, that only last for three months….. very costly. But, a politician can’t afford to suggest getting rid of them or they will lose their job. Third rails cable car Golden Gate Bridge

Then to Alcatraz Island. 

It was the first permanent harbour fortification  on the West Coast. From 1861, it was used as a military prison up until 1934 when it became a US penitentiary. It was closed in 1963 by A.G. Robt. F. Kennedy. 

As if it wasn’t bad enough that I was going to have to get up before the birds got up, I awoke to rain making a hell of a racket coming down the downspout…. at 2am. Well we won’t be seeing much of fall weather for the next 8 weeks. 

History of Capt. Cook- a presentation that we went to hear. 

Cook the 2nd of 8 children, went to live with a family of Quakers then lived his life as a Quaker, lived it as a good person, never swore, was meticulous & allowed no drinking on his ship. 

The very detailed maps of the St Laurence River that he had developed, are said to have helped the British win the battle of Plains of Abraham . He circumnavigated NFLD for 4 years…..was a fabulous map maker. 

He questioned that scurvy that sailors were dying of, was caused by lack fruits and vegetables in their diets. On the journey from England to Tahiti, a journey that took 8 months, he brought fresh fruit and vegetables …. and pickled cabbage… no crew died from scurvy. Cook was very concerned with well-being of his crew. 

He learned to measure longitude ….for the benefit of the safety of sailors. 

To many of the South Pacific Islanders, European boats brought fear because with them they brought death from disease. 

He circumnavigated Antarctica, also found Easter island and Marquesas

Sailed thru from Tahiti… (Raiatea was his favourite), then headed north to Kauai, one of the Hawaiian islands(called the Sandwich islands at the time) that had  not been yet discovered. From there he went to California, Vancouver island,  and north to frozen Berring Sea to find the North West Passage. Unlike some of the Polynesians, Hawaiians were not cannibals. 

He returned to Hawaii after being unsuccessful at finding the northwest passage. Cook was not received well after returning and was in a confrontation with the inhabitants, running to get away. Some say he was murdered but actually drowned. He was 50.

Elizabeth Batts, his wife, burned all his papers just before her death. All his 6 children  predeceased Cook. 

Just so you have a clue as to where I am headed to.

I am doing a test run because it seems that some people that apparently signed on to receive email notifications when I post, are not showing up on my system.

If you received this, would you please send me a message by text or email. It is much easier for me to respond through either than through this website. Please, the same applies when I am on “tour”.

Thanks Gail

Bucerias-Feb 29-Mar 2/24

I went to Bucerias for the last 2 days in Mexico and stayed at Ross and Greg’s “Casa Mexi-Cana”. If you want to stay at very nice place in Bucerias, Nayarit…..check it out. It has amenities that you don’t normally get in Mexican accommodations…..plus it is pretty! I had posted other pictures of the outside seating areas from when we were PV at the beginning of February.

Scenes from Bucerias

I am home now. I expected that I would have a short 5 hour journey home on a direct flight. Not! Because of freezing temps and snow in Calgary, the plane was delayed by 3.45 hour on coming to pick us up. I returned to spring flowers and sunny skies only to have on 2 separate days, have it turn to hail and snow. It is still good to be home 😅!