Alter do Chao

     Located just a few miles up from where the Rio Tapajos flows into the Amazon, Alter do Chao is a beach town of about 3,500.  Because of the very low level of the rivers here we anchored early on January 12 a good bit away and had to tender into town.  Although not particularly well known outside Brazil the town has been here for almost 400 years, founded in 1626 and named after a Portuguese city of the same name.  It is well known to people in this part of Brazil as a vacation destination, however, because of its beaches, said to be the best freshwater beaches in Brazil, if not the world.  They give the town its nickname: “Caribbean in Brazil.”  We were warned that stingrays of all sizes live in these waters, so that if you enter the water you should shuffle your feet rather than chance stepping on one of them.

 

     We tendered ashore with our friend Bill.  The water was so low in the river that we had to disembark onto a floating platform and walk across a board to the beach, then a good way up the beach to reach the town.  We had visited this town in 2019 (look at the beginning and especially at the end of this post):

https://baderjournal.com/2019/11/27/alter-do-cho-brazil/

At that time we disembarked from the tender at a platform in the water near the small port building and walked up a boardwalk with blue and white railings over a wet, marshy area to reach the town.  This time the marshy areas were completely dry and there was a very tall platform rising from the sand near the port building.  That may be the platform where we disembarked last time or perhaps a new embarkation platform built since we were here.  Either way, it appears that the water level when the river is high is normally near the top of this platform, so it gives an idea of how really low the river water is right now.

     There is a square just in front of the port that is surrounded by vendors’ carts (and, when we arrived, by tour buses).  After looking at some of their wares we walked into town along what is probably a waterfront walk when the water is high.  A very sandy island sits just off shore extending to just a few yards from the town, called Ilha do Amor (Island of Love).  When the water is low it is possible to walk to the island through chest high water, which we saw a few people doing.  There were many boats in this area and it looked like a nice place to spend a free day.

     We walked into the town and came to the central square, where we saw the town’s yellow church, Igreja Nossa Senhora da Saude (Our Lady of Health).  On the other side of the square was a park with statues of two dolphins, one gray and one pink.  Pink dolphins are found mostly in the Amazon and neighboring rivers in this part of South America.  They can only live in fresh water and are an endangered species.  A few months ago it was reported that because of the drought in the Amazon basin more than a hundred bodies of pink dolphins had washed ashore further up the river.  We saw some of them (not the dead ones) on our last Amazon visit in 2019, but this statue was the only one we saw on this trip.

     Our main objective for this visit was a store called Arariba Cultura Indigena.  This is a store well known for having one of the best collections of art and crafts made by indigenous people of Amazonia.  We visited it last time we were here and really enjoyed perusing their goods, some of which are inexpensive and many of which cost hundreds of dollars. We did buy a few things, but when you see things so heavily crowded together in a store it is difficult to envision what any one item will look like by itself when you get home.  I would show pictures, but a sign was posted asking that pictures not be taken so we respected that.

     Leaving the store, we walked around the town on our way back to the tender pier.  This is a quiet, pleasant town to walk through.  We passed some animal sculptures on the sidewalk outside businesses and a number of wall paintings, many of which are actually signs for the businesses within the buildings.  We also saw the local cemetery, complete with a model of the church facade and mostly above ground graves.

    Back at the ship we had a late lunch and went up to the Aft pool deck to watch the sail away.  Among other things we watched some people in boats that looked like jet skis speed out to the ship and then around it.  We also watched as they lifted the last tender boat into its position outside deck 4.  Then we sailed away to our next stop tomorrow.

Boca Da Valeria

     On January 13 we anchored in the Amazon just upriver from where it intersects with a tributary called Rio Valeria.  The village of Boca de Valeria is located in the rainforest on the Rio Valeria within walking distance of the Amazon confluence.  This tiny village (75 to 100 residents) was once just a typical Amazon fishing and trading village.  Then, we are told, a number of years ago a ship sailing up the Amazon had engine trouble at this spot and tendered passengers to shore to occupy them while repairs were completed  The inhabitants thought they were being invaded and fled into the forest, returning only after the ship passengers were gone. 

     Since then it has become a regular stop on the Amazon cruise route. The income from cruise ship visits has provided the village with electricity, satellite dish TV, computers and refrigerators, and on cruise ship days people come from miles around and dress up in costumes to pose for pictures at $1 per picture.  The locals also sell arts and crafts and provide canoe rides for about $10 per person.  It is worth visiting because it is the only place you are likely to see anything like the indigenous villages in this area, but in our opinion it is only worth visiting once since it is so small and there is so little to see. 

     We went ashore on our first visit here in 2012 and you can see pictures of the village and read about it here:

https://baderjournal.com/2012/03/01/boca-de-valeria-brazil/

On our second visit we stayed on the ship, but the ship’s location and the sunny weather enabled us to take some pretty good pictures of the town and the surrounding area, as well as the folks in canoes who came out to the ship to try to sell things or just get a look at it.  You can see that here:

https://baderjournal.com/2019/11/07/boca-da-valeria-brazil-2019/

     This time we were anchored a little up river from the Rio Valeria (perhaps because of the low water), so we could not see the village locate around the bend behind the mountain.  In the past the ship’s tenders always dropped folks off at a pier in the center of town near the church, but this time a new, apparently floating, pier had been built right on the corner where the two rivers meet and passengers had to alight there and walk to the town.  The river beyond the new pier looked too small, because of the low water, for a ship tender to sail through.  And no canoes came out to the ship on this visit, perhaps because there was a sign at the pier forbidding it (we didn’t see one but have heard one was there).  So here is what we saw from the ship . . . people walking toward the village from the new covered pier.  Note that on our last visit all of the land around the new pier, on both sides of the small river behind it, was completely under water.

     After we left Boca da Valeria in early afternoon there were two notable events on board.  First was a cake extravaganza in the Lido buffet called “For Cakes’ Sake.”  Dozens of different cakes had been baked by the kitchen staff and you could walk around and get a slice of as many as you liked, for as long as they lasted. We have been to similar events in the past and the desserts always look fabulous, but often don’t live up to their appearance in the taste test.  This time was different; each of us had slices of two different cakes and all were quite delicious.  Our friend Robert had a slice of a rainbow cake he said was quite good; we had never seen anything quite like that.  Then dinner was a dressy night and we received a towel animal.  We used to get these every night but we guess that was a lot of work and now they only come on formal and dressy nights.  (You ask what the difference is between a formal and a dressy night?  As far as we can tell, on formal nights pillow gifts are sometimes left on our bed when we return from dinner while on dressy nights there are none.)

Scarborough, Tobago

     Located about 23 miles from Trinidad, Tobago is the much smaller second island in the nation of Trinidad And Tobago, sometimes called TT locally.  We arrived at Scarborough, the capital and largest city on Tobago, on the morning of January 7.  This was our first visit, never having been to Trinidad either.

     Tobago was inhabited by Carib people when Columbus became the first European to sight it in 1498 (although he didn’t land there).  Over the years the indigenous people adamantly resisted colonization, although the Spanish began raiding it for slaves in the early 16th century.  The island was constantly fought over by the British, Dutch and French, changing hands 31 times before it was finally awarded to the British in 1814 (presumably in the settlement of the Napoleonic Wars).  A destructive hurricane and the end of slavery in 1834 doomed the island’s productive sugar industry and in 1889 Tobago became a ward of Trinidad. The two-island nation achieved independence from Britain in 1962 and in 1976 became a republic.  Today Tobago has a legislature and some internal home rule, but is otherwise dominated by Trinidad.  Tourism is its largest industry.

     Scarborough is the largest town on Tobago with only about 18,000 people, whose homes are spread out over the beautiful green hills surrounding the town.  It was very hot and humid when we were there and it was also Sunday, so not much was happening and most businesses were closed.

     After a delicious breakfast (the food on this voyage has been really good so far) we left the ship and walked down the dock into the town.  If you have read this blog before you won’t be surprised that our first objective was the library.  Unlike in most cities, the library here is one of the largest buildings in town and it is located just a block across from the dock.

     We walked around it until we found the main entrance.  It was completely dark inside but we walked up the stairs to see if there was a listing of hours. There wasn’t but we tried looking through the glass door to see the inside (too dark to see anything).  Then a nice young guard came over and opened the door to inform us that the library was closed on Sundays.  We were disappointed but at least we got to see the outside of the building, which seemed to us rather large and imposing for a town of 18,000 people.  It probably serves the whole island, which is rather sparsely populated.

     We decided to visit the Botanical Gardens, located on the hills behind the library.  The gardens cover some 18 acres that the British requisitioned for this purpose in the late 19th century from what was once a couple of sugar plantations.  They are quite beautiful but mostly up a steep hill that left us rather worn out by the time we reached the top.  Extensive Christmas lights were still in evidence on the buildings and trees but were not lit in the daytime (of course).

     Thereafter we looked for the fort the British built here in the 18th century, but we didn’t find it before we were pretty worn out.  Mary had a knee replaced in July & neither of us is as young as we once were, and did we mention it was hilly and hot and very humid?  So we returned to the ship after what turned out to be a brief look at this town.  We tried to spot the fort as we sailed away but never saw it (or perhaps we just failed to recognize it).  We backed well away from the pier before turning around to sail into the ocean.  As we did so a colorful kite came flying over, apparently from shore, and after a while sank slowly into the water.  A boat came speeding up looking for it, but the kite had submerged by the time it arrived.  Later, after the boat had gone, the kite bobbed back to the surface, where we last saw it.

Devil’s Island, French Guiana

     We were awoken very early on January 9 by the noise of the tender boat hanging just outside our stateroom veranda being lowered into the water.  This was our announcement that we were anchored off this three island archipelago (called Iles de Salut) about 9 miles from the shore of French Guiana.  Thanks a lot; wasn’t this supposed to be a vacation?

     Devil’s Island was, of course, a notorious French prison for about 100 years, ending in 1953.  If you have seen the movie Papillion, you should know a lot about it, although the book on which the movie is based has been debunked as fictional rather than the memoir it purported to be.  The author had actually been imprisoned on the mainland and had never even visited Devil’s Island, much less escaped from it.  Still, the prison was pretty horrible.  Its most famous inmate was Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army who in the late 19th century was framed and convicted of treason, spending about 5 years in seclusion on Devil’s Island before his conviction was overturned and he was returned to France.  Today you can see a restoration of his stone hut from the nearby island of Ile Royale, although no one can actually visit the true Ile Diablo because the waters are too dangerous.

      From our anchorage we could see two of the three islands: Ile Royale (at left in picture below) and Ile St Joseph (at right).  Ile Royale was the main prison installation, housing most of the prisoners and administration of the prison.  Ile St Joseph housed problem prisoners, often held in harsher conditions such as solitary confinement, darkness and enforced silence.  Ile Diablo (Devil’s Island) was for political prisoners, which included Dreyfus and more than twenty republicans who resisted the coup d’etat of Louis Bonaparte, among others.  Devil’s island was on the other side of Ile Royale from where we anchored, so we couldn’t see it from the ship, although you can see it from the other side of Ile Royale.          This was our third visit to this archipelago and Ile Royale is not, for all of its beauty and interest, a metropolis like Paris or Rome where there is always something new to do or see on return visits.  So we stayed on board rather than tendering to the small dock on Ile Royale. 

But if you want to know what we did and saw on previous visits, as well as see and read much more about these islands and the prison and its ruins, you can look at our previous Devil’s Island blog posts, from 2012 and 2019:

https://baderjournal.com/2012/03/07/devils-island-french-guyana/

https://baderjournal.com/2019/12/12/devils-island-french-guiana-2019/

     We were told by some who did go ashore that the restaurant and gift shop were closed as was the church, possibly for additional restoration.  So we weren’t too sorry to miss it.  If it had been our first visit it would have been a very different story.  From the ship we were able to see the top of the modern lighthouse above the trees and another ruins we couldn’t identify visible through an opening in the foliage.  In the opposite direction we could see the shore of French Guiana about 9 miles away.  You can see why few attempted to escape through this long stretch of shark infested waters.

     As an aside, because our veranda was smack up against tender/life boat #11 we had in interesting view of the lowering and raising of the tenders.  Below is a picture of the opened tender cranes after the boats are in the water, taken through the rain spotted glass under the rail across our veranda.  Below that is a view of the tender boats stored in their raised position along the ship and the same view after they are lowered into the sea, showing the walking deck below.  We had never been in quite that position before.

Macapa, Brazil

     The morning of January 11 found us anchored in the Amazon near Macapa, Brazil.  We had crossed the Amazon Bar (where the river meets the ocean) the day before.  There is a dispute whether the Amazon or the Nile is the longest river in the world, but there is no dispute that the Amazon is the biggest in every other way, particularly volume of water.  The river is spectacularly wide; in fact there is an island the size of Switzerland situated near its mouth.  Sailing this river is quite beautiful and varied, with wonderful cloud formations and many different looking villages and isolated houses along its shores.  Mary noted that whoever christened the Mississippi “The Big Muddy” must not have been here, because the Amazon is much bigger and much muddier than the Mississippi.

     The water in the Amazon is historically low this year because of drought throughout the Amazon basin.  This has killed many wildlife, including more than a hundred of the endangered pink dolphins that live here, whose bodies have washed up on shore.  It has also made navigating the river, always a challenge for ocean going ships, much more perilous and a number of them have cancelled Amazon trips.  Although it has double the passenger capacity of the Prinsendam, in which we have cruised the Amazon before, we are told that Zuiderdam has a shallow enough draft to make it through the river with an expert pilot on board.   We picked up three pilots in Macapa, we understand, and will have replacements come aboard several times, kind of like the old Pony Express I guess.  The captain said that the most valuable thing on board the ship right now is the pilots’ paper charts, which show which areas are too shallow and which are still deep enough for Zuiderdam to sail through.

      Although Macapa is a large city of more than 500,000 people, this was not actually a port stop.  No one was allowed off the ship to explore the city.  This stop, only a few hours long, was designated a “service stop” to enable the ship to complete Brazilian paperwork (we know a little about how that can be from our visa fiasco), be inspected by Brazilian officials, and board the pilots.  You would never know this was a big city from the ship’s anchorage, however, because all of it but a small dock was obscured by forest.  In addition to the dock we saw the pilot boats that brought the Brazilian officials and the pilots, one with scaffolding an a raised platform for a pilot to safely jump from the ship.

     It was too bad we couldn’t go ashore because this is one of a handful of cities in the world that the Equator runs through.  There is a tall monument marking the spot, called “Marco Zero,” with a line from the monument to the local soccer stadium where it becomes the center line on the field.  When we had a service stop here in 2019 we couldn’t see Marco Zero from the ship but we were anchored much closer to the center of town so that it actually looked like a city.  The different anchorage is probably attributable to the much lower water level.  You can see our 2019 stop here:

https://baderjournal.com/2019/12/02/three-days-at-sea-2019/

     The rest of the day was basically a sea day (or river day) as we continued our journey up the scenic but muddy Amazon.

        

    On January 3, 2024, we set sail from Ft Lauderdale on an epic 128 day voyage around the world, scheduled to return to Ft Lauderdale on May 11.  We are sailing on the Holland America ship Zuiderdam which has a passenger capacity of more than 1900.  This is much larger than any ship on which we have taken a long voyage before, but we are told that only a little more than 1200 passengers are actually on board.  This will certainly make the ship less crowded but it’s still pretty big for our tastes and we are still trying to remember where everything is located two days later as I write this. 

     We joined this voyage primarily because its itinerary was so good for us, sailing to a number of interesting places we have never been, including Japan, China, India & Hawaii.  So far we have had two itinerary changes before sailing, with three Israeli ports cancelled after war broke out there on October 7, and a reversal of our port stops in China that would enable many of us to visit those cities without obtaining a Chinese visa.  As of today, here is our scheduled itinerary, first a map and then a list of port stops (the flaming round map icons denote overnight stops and the moon icons denote late night departures):   

 Day         Date          Itinerary                                                Arrival      Departure

 

 

 WED         03JAN24          Sail from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, US                         5:00pm

 

 

 SUN         07JAN24          Scarborough, Trinidad and Tobago        8:00am           5:00pm

 

 

 TUE         09JAN24          Devils Island, French Guiana                  8:00am           5:00pm

                                    

 

 THU        11JAN24          Macapa, Brazil                                       6:00am           11:00am

 

 

 FRI         12JAN24          Alter Do Chao, Brazil                              11:00am          6:00pm

 

 

 SAT        13JAN24          Boca da Valeria, Brazil                             7:00am           2:00pm 

                                    

 

  SUN      14JAN24          Manaus, Brazil                                         8:00am           5:00pm

                                    

 

  MON     15JAN24          Parintins, Brazil                                       10:00am          6:00pm

 

                                   

 TUE       16JAN24          Santarem, Brazil                                       8:00am           5:00pm

 

 

 SAT        20JAN24          Saint Georges, Grenada                           8:00am           5:00pm

 

 

 MON      22JAN24          Willemstad, Curacao                                8:00am           6:00pm

 

 

 WED      24JAN24          Panama Canal                                           5:00am           5:00pm

 

 

 FRI        26JAN24         Quepos, Costa Rica                                    7:00am          4:00pm

 

 

 MON     29JAN24         Manzanillo, Mexico                                   12:00n          9:00pm

 

 

 TUE      30JAN24         Puerto Vallarta, Mexico                               8:00am          5:00pm

 

 

 TUE      06FEB24         Kona, Hawaii, US                                         10:00am         8:00pm

 

 

 WED     07FEB24         Hilo, Hawaii, US                                            8:00am          5:00pm

 

 

 THU     08FEB24         Honolulu, Hawaii, US                                    7:00am          11:00pm

 

 

SUN      18FEB24         Guam (US Territory), Guam                           8:00am          5:00pm

 

 

MON     19FEB24         Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands                  8:00am          5:00pm

 

 

 FRI       23FEB24         Ishigaki Island, Japan                                    7:00am          5:00pm

 

 

SAT       24FEB24         Naha, Japan                                                  7:00am

 

SUN       25FEB24         Naha, Japan                                                                        11:00pm

 

 WED      28FEB24         Tokyo, Japan                                                  8:00am

 THU      29FEB24         Tokyo, Japan                                                                       6:00pm

 

 

 FRI       01MAR24         Omaezaki, Japan                                          7:00am          5:00pm

 

 

SAT      02MAR24         Kobe, Japan                                                    9:00am

 

 

SUN      03MAR24         Kobe, Japan                                                                        5:00pm

 MON    04MAR24          Scenic Cruising Kanmon Strait

 

 TUE      05MAR24          Fukuoka (Hakata), Japan                               7:00am          4:00pm

THU      07MAR24          Shanghai, China                                            8:00am

 FRI       08MAR24          Shanghai, China                                                                 5:00pm

 

 SUN     10MAR24          Dalian, China                                                  8:00am          5:00pm

 

 MON    11MAR24          Tianjin (Beijing), China                                    8:00am

 

 TUE     12MAR24          Tianjin (Beijing), China                                                         6:00pm

                                   

 SAT     16MAR24          Hong Kong, China                                           8:00am

 

 SUN     17MAR24          Hong Kong, China                                                                3:30pm

 

 

 TUE     19MAR24          Da Nang (Hue), Vietnam                                 8:00am             11:00pm

                                   

 THU     21MAR24          Phu My, Vietnam                                           6:00am               6:00pm

 SAT     23MAR24          Singapore                                                       8:00am

 

 SUN     24MAR24          Singapore                                                                                5:00pm

 THU    28MAR24          Colombo, Sri Lanka                                         8:00am              11:00pm

 

 SUN    31MAR24          Mumbai (Bombay), India                                  6:00am

  

                                   

 MON   01APR24          Mumbai (Bombay), India                                                             5:00pm

 

 

 THU    04APR24          Fujairah, United Arab Emirates                        8:00am                6:00pm

                                   

 FRI      05APR24          Dubai, United Arab Emirates                           7:00am                11:00pm

                                   

 SAT    06APR24          Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates                    8:00am                 11:00pm

 

                                   

 MON   08APR24          Muscat, Oman                                               8:00am                    6:00pm

 WED    10APR24          Salalah, Oman                                               8:00am                    5:00pm

 MON    15APR24          Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt                                7:00am                    8:00pm

      

TUE      16APR24          Aqaba (for Petra), Jordan                               6:00am                  8:00pm

 THU     18APR24          Suez Canal                                                   6:00am                  6:00pm

 

 

 SAT      20APR24          Rhodes, Greece                                            8:00am                   9:00pm

 

 

 SUN      21APR24          Bodrum, Turkey                                           8:00am                   6:00pm

 

 

 MON     22APR24          Kusadasi (Ephesus), Turkey                         8:00am                    6:00pm

 

 

 TUE       23APR24          Cruising The Dardanelles

                                  

 TUE       23APR24          Istanbul, Turkey                                          4:00pm

 

 

 WED      24APR24          Istanbul, Turkey                                                                        4:00pm

 

 

 THU      25APR24          Mykonos, Greece                                      11:00am                   11:00pm

                                   

 FRI        26APR24          Piraeus (Athens), Greece                            7:00am                     5:00pm

 

 

 SUN      28APR24          Naples (Pompeii/Amalfi), Italy                    8:00am                    7:00pm

 

 

 WED      01MAY24          Malaga, Spain                                           7:00am                    5:00pm

 SAT      04MAY24          Ponta Delgada, Sao Miguel, Azores,           8:00am                    5:00pm

 

SAT      11MAY24         Debark Ship Fort Lauderdale                        7:00am

     The itinerary for this voyage has been uncertain from the beginning and we are still not sure how it will turn out. Notably:

Brazil:  When we first visited Brazil in 2012 we purchased a visa that lasted 10 years.  We visited again in 2019, when our visa would still have been good but Brazil had eliminated visas for US citizens.  Earlier this year they announced they were reinstating a visa requirement for Americans at the beginning of 2014, about a year after our old visa, unused since 2012, ran out.  The new visa requirement was to start for people entering Brazil on January 11, 2024 . . . the day we would arrive (coincidence? We wonder).

     The date on which they would accept visa applications was delayed from early October until about a week into December, less than a month before we were to depart.   This created a lot of pressure on passengers because we were told, repeatedly, that no one would be permitted to board the ship on January 3 without a Brazilian visa, thus putting the entire voyage in doubt for anyone who didn’t obtain a visa by then.  And, of course, obtaining a visa turned out to be excruciatingly difficult.  After filling out their form each of us had to upload a picture of ourself and of our picture passport page, in specified format with vague sizing requirements.  We had to upload a copy of our Airline itinerary to and from Brazil (they later agreed to accept our ship itinerary) and a bank statement showing the names of the bank and the account holder and transactions for the last month demonstrating that we have at least $2,000 (ie. enough to get home again).  The reviewing process was very slow (sometimes more than a week or even two) and arbitrary, since different demands for reuploading unaccepted documents were issued.  Often no explanation was given about what was wrong with the initial document provided and there was no one you could contact for explanation or assistance.  And remember, with the departure date fast approaching, the entire cruise was in jeopardy.

       Was anybody nervous?  You bet!  Shortly before Christmas Holland America announced that no one would be denied boarding for lack of a visa after all and if Brazil wouldn’t accommodate us they would change the itinerary to skip Brazil.  Then about a week later, as we were preparing to leave, HAL announced that Brazil had agreed that the ship could sail up the Amazon so long as passengers without a visa did not leave the ship.  So at least no one was going to miss the entire cruise.  Rick’s evisa finally arrived in his inbox the day before we sailed and Mary’s came today, three days into the voyage.  We understand that about half the passengers hadn’t received visas by the time we sailed.  Then yesterday Brazil announced that they were postponing the visa requirement for three months (what they should have done in the first place).  So now everyone is free to visit the Brazilian ports (assuming we will be able to sail up the Amazon, which is suffering from a historic drought that kept some ships from visiting it a month or so ago).  All we are out, therefore, is the $160 we paid for a Brazilian visa we probably will never need (no refunds, at least so far).  That is not counting any health effects of a month of unnecessary tension for a bunch of people who are no longer as young as they once were.

The Red Sea:   As I mentioned above, we originally had three stops in Israel that were changed in October.  But we have no idea what may happen when we arrive at the southern entry to the Red Sea in April.  The war in Israel continues, ships are avoiding the Red Sea and Suez Canal because some are being attacked with missiles and drones from Yemen, the US is threatening the Houthis in Yemen with military force if they don’t stop doing that, and Iran has reportedly sent war ships to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.  By April this may all be over, or it may have spread into a wider conflict shutting down the Red Sea.  If the Red Sea is not open for cruise ships it seems we will have to be redirected around Africa, missing the Mediterranean portion of this itinerary.  That would be pretty drastic and disappointing to us, first because it would mean more and wider suffering for the people in the region, but also because we visited most of the ports in Africa last year and were looking forward to some of the stops in the Mediterranean.  Still, such a drastic alteration of a world cruise is not unprecedented:  in 2020 HAL’s world cruise was aborted in Australia at the beginning of the COVID pandemic and passengers had to leave the ship in Perth and find a flight home from there.  It was more than half a year before they saw their luggage again.  So detouring around Africa wouldn’t be the worst that can happen (while being hit by a missile in the Red Sea would be).  Obviously, we are hoping it doesn’t come to that.

     Anyway, however it goes we intend to enjoy this voyage.  We have a lot of great experiences planned and life aboard the ship is also enjoyable (unless you really enjoy washing dishes, making beds and doing laundry, which is all done for us here).  Some people post to their blogs every day, it seems, but we don’t know how they do it.  Blog writing can only be done on sea days and each episode seems to take us a long time to compose.  Our main goal in this blog is to create a record of what we have done and seen on our travels that will serve as a diary/photo album, allowing us to look back on them and remember what we have experienced.  So the permanent product is more important to us than keeping up with daily events.  The result is that our postings will fall further and further behind the ship’s actual progress and we will not finish blogging this journey until months after we return. 

     If you are interested in following where we and the Zuiderdam are at any particular time you can see it on this page:

https://www.seascanner.com/ships-position-zuiderdamr

    If you would like to receive an email when a new episode is posted to this blog there is a link where you can subscribe at the very bottom of this page.  Because episodes will, at best, be posted intermittently on fairly random dates (on Grand Africa nothing was posted before we returned), and this blog is old-fashioned and not well indexed, subscribing is probably the easiest way to follow it.  If you have subscribed in the past I don’t think you have to do it again (unless your email has changed).

     If you click the “About” button at the top of this page you will learn more about this blog than you probably want to, including past voyages that are included here.

     So that’s it for now.  If you see this you will know that we were able to upload to our blog site (this didn’t work at all on our Grand Africa voyage last year).  If you don’t, then nothing I say here will matter.  We will leave you with two pictures.  The first is us (on the left) with our friends Bill, Robert, Judy and Bob at dinner on the first night of the cruise.  We all met during our first world cruise in 2016 when HAL threw us together to share a dining table, along with our friend Lee.  All seven of us travelled together again on a world cruise in 2018.  Only six of us are together this time, but only because Lee died during the 2018 voyage; otherwise we are sure he would have been here.  The second picture is our first glorious Caribbean sunset.  See you next time.