San Diego

We were scheduled to take the harbor tour. Truthfully, I was much more interested in calling home, getting emails and shopping for supplies! This was Jim’s first time in San Diego however, so I thought a little sightseeing was in order - fair is fair.  Well, there was some miscommunication and the harbor boat left without any of the Pacific Princess passengers.  I point out that the entire group was left, so you don’t think I just drug my feet and we were the only ones who - missed the boat.  We were supposed to see everything from Old Point Loma Lighthouse to the Cabrillo National Monument.  We did see the two mile long Coronado Bridge and the Light House from our ship. We then moved on to plan two and got our shopping done and talked to the grandkids.  Our next project was wine. We managed to get two more cases of wine aboard. I just took one of our bags, with the Princess Luggage tag, and changed the boarding date. We filled it with wine and then checked it with the incoming passengers. We were told (by the cruise veterans) incoming bags are checked by homeland security for bombs, guns, etc. they don’t care about wine. If you hand carry it aboard, it goes through ship’s security and then they can pull the “a bottle a person” rule on you. I guess they knew what they were talking about as the wine was waiting in our stateroom when we came back on board.  That should cover the balcony “happy hours” until Australia. We took a “pedicab” to do our shopping which was kind of fun. I thought I was going to have to get out and push going up one hill with the first guy.  I almost felt like I should apologize for the extra poundage we probably have incurred the last couple of weeks. Once we checked our bag and hit the internet café, we spent the rest of the afternoon walking the harbor and having a drink in an open air café. It was a crystalline day –about 75 degrees, crisp blue skies and sunny. San Diego is noted for great weather but I was here one time when, whatever their equivalent to a “Texas blue norther” is, had blown in. Today’s weather more than made up for it.  We are back on ship and are continuing our whale watching duty. We have yet to spot a whale. Apparently, yesterday there were three basking on our side of the ship. I guess we were reading or working crossword puzzles when we should have been observing. We are hopeful of seeing some as this is “whale season”. Between San Diego and Hawaii is supposed to be fantastic whale watching. I will let you know.  We have our 3 longest stretches of sea days almost in a row. It was about 2000 miles from San Juan del Sur to San Diego, then 2000 to the Hawaiian Islands, then another 2000 miles to Dravuni Island (in the island group with Fiji). I am not sure what there is to see there, but after 5 days at sea I am sure we will get off and see it!  I think for the rest of the cruise, there is just a day or two between most ports. So you may have to survive more days of drivel at sea before we get back to the travelogue.  Being a novice blogger I am trying to decide if you should fill those days with tales of daily life aboard ship etc. or just wait for the next port. They say to be a good blog one should post daily or will people lose interest – that of course, is assuming they found it interesting in the first place. One might suggest that you write when you have something of interest to say, but of course I have already ruined philosophy.  I guess we will just see how it goes.

Pictures!

While in San Diego with free wi fi access - I went back and posted some pictures with the blog from each country. Hannah, I also posted one of the ship, as requested.

A Day at sea - Monday

(This one got out of order somehow)

It was a fun start to the day. We were cruising off the coast of El Salvador. I was sitting on the balcony reading my book and drinking my tea when I noticed two dolphins playing in the bow wave. They looked like they were having such a good time. Then out of nowhere came this herd/pod, I don’t know what you call them, but a multitude of dolphins. There were easily 50 or 60 of them! I have never seen anything like that before. They were jumping, some clear out of the water. It was quite a sight. I watched for a while as I wondered if something was chasing them to have stirred up such a frenzy.  Iyou can see, I am easily entertained.  I was editing yesterday’s pictures and came across one of a cashew.  Have you ever seen a cashew tree?  It is an interesting nut. It grows on a giant red, jalapeño pepper looking fruit and the cashew nut looks like the stem, on the outside of the fruit. Strawberries are the only other fruit that have their seeds on the outside, I think.  A random thought I know.  I was actually going be good today and walk laps on the track with Jim.  I pushed away from my cholesterol bonanza that passes for breakfast these days. I rode the elevator down 2 floors to get my walking shoes (not a good sign about my commitment to exercise). The steward was cleaning the room and I didn’t want to disturb his progress, so I just walked down to the promenade deck and rested awhile on these inviting wooden chaise lounges, with those wonderfully thick pads. As you can see, it doesn’t take much to detour me from exercising. Tomorrow, another day at sea. (Note- While at sea, I don’t check emails. I just get on - post the blog, check comments and get off.)

The Last Day at Sea Before San Diego

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Finally, internet service again! Since we will be in San Diego tomorrow I will wait to pick up my emails there. I did post a batch of blogs for the last few days, just so the kids knew I was still kicking. We attended a “Cruise Critics” luncheon today. We were included because before we left I went on the “Cruise Critics” page, online, to ask a packing question. That apparently kicked off the “Roll Call” for the 2012 World Cruise. Who knew? These people are almost like an incestuous cult of professional travelers! They all seem to know each other from past cruises. One couple had spent over 2200 days on various cruises – that is over 6 years at sea! Now those are dedicated cruisers. Many, maybe most, have taken world cruises before. I can see where prepared meals (delivered to your room, if you are too lazy to go out) and someone making your bed and cleaning your place daily could become additive. It is also a very relaxed way to see the world. I do wonder if some of these folks have families back home however. After hearing the amount of time some of these people spent cruising, one man leaned over and whispered, “do you ever wonder if maybe these people are just sort of the high end “homeless”? It’s a thought.

And yet another day at Sea – Thursday

To tell you the level of excitement here today I was walking behind a guy at the pool and I noticed the writing on his cap  –“the older I get, the better I was”.  Taint it the truth? It struck me as funny so I set out on a mission to start reading caps and tee shirts around the pool. One guy’s shirt stated, “Things are so bad that I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail”. A guy in the buffet line, “I didn't climb to the top of the food chain to become a vegetarian”.  Or on a woman who looked like she meant it  - “The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on the list”.  There is no end to the things you can find entertaining when you have plenty of time to do them! The highlight of course was Jim’s big on stage performance. The performance when well, with no mishaps.  This is not stating the obvious as during practice, one song bird’s false teeth fell out on a high note!  They sounded pretty darn good for a group of amateurs who only had 7 practice sessions. There was a nice selection of songs from “The Rose” to “All that Jazz” – with an encore  of – what else – “Around the World in Eighty Days”.  

And Another Day at Sea - Wednesday

This has been an amazingly smooth trip. The Pacific has been like sailing in a bathtub so far.  Last night was the Captain’s Party. I never really understood the fun of dressing up to shake hands with the Captain and have a watery drink but we got a printed invitation so by gum Jim planned to attend!  Since we were “dressing” we also hit the formal dinner too.  One guy at our table is traveling by himself – quite a personable gent - full of stories of his travels. He drinks a lot, likes marijuana and hashish – and spends time reading Russian novels in the hammock that he has hung on his balcony. He had a stroke on his world cruise last year, but only stayed in the hospital overnight and then limped aboard with a cane and just the use of his right side. He walked as many laps as he could force himself to do daily hanging on to the railings and when he arrived back in the states he was almost completely recovered.  There is also a single woman at our table who has traveled to Antarctica on a research ship and to Africa with a professional women’s group.   I haven’t sat next to the chef yet but figure he is good for a couple of stories. We don’t go to the dressy sit down dinners that much. There is another dining room where you can dine by yourself and just order from the menu – and you don’t have to dress.  Tomorrow is Jim’s big performance so I will let you know how that goes.  I am really missing Hannah and Hailey already.  I seldom go more than a couple of weeks without seeing them and  I talk to them, or their mother, almost daily. Courtney wrote that at the dinner table last  week, Hannah started  singing “99 days ‘til Nana comes home,  99 more days, take my crown and pass it around, 99 more day ‘til Nana come home”. Ya gotta love it. It is so strange to not have phone of internet access. I find I really miss not being in touch – so these missives may become therapeutic! Day after tomorrow when we hit San Diego there will be phone service, emails and shopping!

Another Day at Sea -Tuesday

No internet at all for the last two days so you may get a double, triple or quadruple dose when it they finally get it up and running. I mentioned this to Jim who said, “Maybe the Wee Fee is down.” Wee Fee?  “You know the internet connection”. Oh, Wi Fi. That is when I suspected he wasn’t going to be of much assistance with my computer problems on this trip!  Aside from that, our focus of the day was food. We were so excited that there was to be a “Mexican Buffet” today. As we seldom go a week without Mexican food, we were ready!  Knowing the cooks were Italian, we did not set the bar too high. We did adjust our caloric intake at breakfast to allow for some double dipping at lunch – just in case. I do know there is Mexican food then there is Tex-Mex, which is what we are used to. This was more Italian-Mex. The “enchiladas” I would describe as chicken lasagna. The guacamole did have avocados and tomatoes but not a hint of spice. The “chicken tortilla” soup had a tomato bisque base.  I think the other soup had seaweed. The refried beans just looked plain scary. A really sad commentary is, despite it all, we were so desperate for “Mexican” food we ate enough that we felt obliged to skip dinner! I suppose if they hadn’t said “Mexican” Buffet the food wasn’t too bad, but I still need my Chalupa fix. We are passing by Mexico  but they don’t stop in Acapulco anymore because of the drug/gang problems. I think I might have been willing to risk it for one good, greasy taco.