This is just a quick post to let our friends & family know we are still alive & kicking.

     Since we last posted we have been visiting New Zealand & Australia.  The weather has not been kind to us, but so far we have missed only one port: Port Arthur, Tasmania (Australia).  We have had a lot of cold & rainy days and quite a lot of heavy sea turbulence, particularly rounding the southern end of New Zealand and now in Tasmania.  We visited Hobart, Tasmania, on the 13th with a very nice day. But the Captain decided to shorten the visit & “get out of Dodge” because a big storm was coming toward the west coast of Tasmania. 

     We turned around at 9:00 PM & headed out the river & then back up the east coast of Tasmania, then turned west at the top.  Winds and sea turbulence have been all that he predicted and more, with 26 foot waves that reached the 5th deck and winds that reached 86 mph, hurricane (or cyclone here) level.  So we have been rocking & rolling and doing our best to keep on our feet when walking.  The Captain says he still hopes to make it to Penneshaw on Kangaroo Island tomorrow, but at noon rather than 8:00 AM as scheduled because most of last night we “hove to,” meaning the ship was not moving because the turbulence was too bad to make any progress.  We are not convinced that a stop at Kangaroo Island, a tender port, is in the cards but we are keeping our fingers crossed.

   Anyway, New Zealand was great & only one of the ports was a repeat for us (Auckland).  We cruised through Fiordland National Park on the South Island, and Milford Sound was especially impressive.  Unfortunately, Rick got sick the day before we reached Sydney, so other than the sail in (gray & cloudy, alas) & a night at the Sydney Opera House to see Carmen, he spent the two days in Sydney in bed.  One expects some setbacks on a four month world cruise, and this was easier to take because we had been to Sydney before & had seen quite a lot after a magnificent sail in.  If all this sounds too negative, we really don’t mean to complain because, after all, this is a world cruise; just giving a status report.  Even the rocky seas are something of an adventure!

     So here are just a few pictures from this segment of the voyage.

    In the last blog episode from our 2016 World Cruise, https://baderjournal.wordpress.com/2016/07/, we summed up this way:

“So that’s it for this truly epic journey, a true circumnavigation of the globe (which we discovered requires you to pass through two points on precisely opposite sides of the world . . . ours were near New Zealand & Gibraltar)).  This is truly a once in a lifetime trip . . . unless you do it again, which we just might.  So long until next time.”

     So today, less than two years later, “next time” has already come as we find ourselves again boarding the M/S Amsterdam for another turn around the world.

     We didn’t think we would be doing this again quite this quickly, but HAL offered an interesting itinerary around the southern part of Africa instead of going through the Med.  And in addition all of our table mates from the 2016 cruise decided to go again this year, so how could we pass up such a happy reunion?

     The first episode of our 2016 world cruise blog included my characteristically discursive review of the history of world cruising.  It’s still there so I won’t bore you with any more of that today. if you want to read it just aim you browser to ttps://baderjournal.wordpress.com/2015/12/27/around-the-world-in-115-days/.

     This year we will be returning to some interesting ports we visited in 2016 & also visiting some new places where we have never been before.  Here is the current itinerary map:

Here is a list version of the itinerary, which is probably easier to follow & also tells you when we are supposed to be there:

     This is our “current” itinerary because we have learned over the years that the scheduled stops are not guaranteed.  We have missed ports because the weather or ocean turbulence made tendering ashore too dangerous & also because of political unrest.  This year’s trip was originally supposed to include Madagascar, but that was cancelled because of an outbreak of plague, so we will be stopping at Reunion Island instead.  If we don’t have to miss any other stops along the way we will be pretty happy campers, & also somewhat surprised.  A lot can happen over the course of four months!

     We always drive to Florida & leave our car for the duration of the trip.  There is parking on the pier, but its pretty expensive for a long trip ($15 or $20, last time we checked).  We park our car at a place called Auto Storage USA, http://www.autostorageusa.com/.  The long term rates are very reasonable, a fraction of the pier price, the lot is enclosed by a 10 foot wall with an electronic sliding gate, & the people who run it are really nice & friendly.  They were, as always, happy to see us, spent time with us in friendly conversation, then drove us to our hotel.  They are highly recommended for anyone wanting to drive to Ft Lauderdale for a cruise.

     We are going to approach the blog of this trip differently than in the past, to Rick’s benefit but not yours.  The internet on board ship is so very slow that Rick ended up spending far too many hours sitting in the library waiting for blog entries to upload to the internet.  Moreover, since HAL charges for internet service the old fashioned way – by the minute – this slow service also cost a lot of money.  So, to save some money and (more importantly) allow Rick to enjoy more of the voyage we have decided not to post the blog episodes as they are completed, as we did last time.  Instead, they will be composed as we travel along, but not posted until we have access to reasonably fast internet service.  We may try to post some messages here via email, but those would be relatively short with few if any pictures.  We have never tried that before, so we will see how it works.

     That means that this may be the last posting you will see until we return to the USA at the end of April.  On our last world cruise Singapore was the one port that had fast (& free) internet available from the cruise terminal.  If that is true again this year we may post some episodes from there, but it appears we will be docking at a different place in Singapore this year so we don’t know if the fast internet will be available there or not.  The best way to be sure you see new episodes whenever they are posted is to sign up for email notices (instructions are on the “About this Blog” page).  If you would like to follow the cruise in real time, you obviously won’t be able to do it here, but there are web addresses listed on the “About this Blog” page of four other blogs maintained by people who will be on this cruise with us.

     At the top of this page are three buttons.

     1. The “Home” button will bring you to the most recent blog post if you are looking at any other posting.

    2. The “About This Blog” button takes you to a post that explains (very) thoroughly how to use the blog, including how to sign up for email notices of new posts.  If you want to follow this blog you should read it, since it has a lot of useful information. One key tip: the pictures have captions, sometimes interesting & sometimes not, which will pop up on a computer screen if you hover your mouse over the picture without pressing a button. We don’t know how (or whether) that works if you are viewing the blog on a phone, tablet or other device without a mouse.

    3. On the far right is a button labeled “M/S Amsterdam’s Current Position.”  That button will take you (surprise!) to a web page that will tell you where our ship is currently located (or at least where it is scheduled to be located).  That page would enable you at least to follow the ship’s progress contemporaneously, although without our scintillating photos & brilliant commentary.

     So that’s it for now.  If we aren’t nuked in the China Sea or struck down by Zika or Dengue Fever in Africa or bitten by a poisonous spider or snake in Australia, we will be back on April 28 with a boatload (so to speak) of new stories & pictures to share with everyone.