March 7th - March 9th Sydney and Cairns.

On  Tuesday March 7th I climbed the Sydney Harbor Bridge while Nancy took a Harbor cruise and toured the Modern Art Museum.  We had dinner at Chat Thai, which was excellent, and the saw the Australian play "Away" at the Sydney Opera House.   We retired to our hotel, the Hotel Russell, which is located on the oldest section of Sydney.  It is an excellent hotel in the perfect location.   We had found out before we arrived it is often counted as one of the worlds 10 top 10 haunted hotels.  That night, a circuit breaker in our room tripped, as we were getting up to notify the staff we found there was water on the bathroom floor and splattered on the bathroom wall, that was not there when we came back earlier, and we did not do it!!!   Very cool.  

 

View of the Sydney Harbor Bridge - if you look closely you will see three groups of climbers, climbing up from the left on the top of the arch.

On March 8th we flew to Cairns.   We took an Ariel tram up a mountain going over a dense tropical rainforest.  At one point we stopped for a ranger guided tour.   At the top we toured a butterfly sanctuary and had lunch before taking a train back into Cairns, past a great waterfall. 

 

Ranger lead tour - note the large tree behind him is actually two trees, one is in the middle and the second one is a tree that actually grows down with lots of trunks.  While it will eventually crush the tree in the middle, not before it's trunk structure has become self supporting.

 

Waterfall we saw on both the cable car and train ride.

 

Butterfly checking the time on Nancy's watch.

On March 9th we took a small group boat tour to the Great Barrier Reef.  We went snorkling twice, for about a hour each time.  The reef had some of the prettiest coral we have ever seen.   

 

A shark that swam under us at the Great Barrier Reef. 

 

One of our boat our guides.   Note the massive giant clam near the center of the picture.  

March 4th to 6th. Brisbane, sea day, Sydney

On Saturday March 4th we arrived in Brisbane.  We took a taxi into the city where we caught a tour boat for an hour and fifteen minute ride up the river past magnificent house after magnificent house.  The locals clearly love their river and there were people picnicking beside it, walking and jogging near it, and finally people boating on the river.  We arrived at the Lone Pine Koalas Sanctuary.   There we saw probably a hundred cute koalas, kangaroos, dingos, and other wild life.   It was really a special place.  

 

Nancy, Roger, and Waffle

 

Nancy feeding a "Roo".

After visiting the Sanctuary we took the tour boat back to Brisbane and a taxi to the cruise ship. Sunday was a sea day.  It started out calm, but by evening the waves were very rough.  The ship was bouncing all over the place. We practically needed seat belts for the bed.   The waves were splashing past our 6th floor balcony.   But we survived the night and sailed into Sydney.  

We dropped our bags at the hotel.  (Hotel Russell, that is listed on some of the top 10 haunted places in the world.). We walked over to the Sydney Opera house past stunning views of the Sydney Harbor Bridge.  The Sydney Opera House is amazing, containing six different venues inside for Opera, plays, concerts, and other events.  We enjoyed an hour long tour of both the inside and outside.   From there we walked the beautiful Sydney Botanical Garden and had a nice lunch in the Garden House Cafe.  After lunch it was back to the hotel to check in and rest.   In the early evening we took a taxi to the Queen Victoria Building.  The building was opened in 1898, and is gorgous, both on the inside and out.  It is now a large four story, two block long mall. We visited a gallery that specializes in the art of Dr. Seuss and chatted with the owner. Inside were large prints and original drawings by Dr. Seuss. What a surprise to find it here! For dinner we ate at the Medusa, a Greek restaurant.  With wonderful lamb kabobs.

 

 

The Sydney Harbor Bridge that Roger will climb tomorrow to the top. 

 

Nancy in front of the Sydney Opera House. 

 

Inside the Queen Victoria Building. 

Feb 26th to March 3rd Lautoka Fiji, Noumea New Caledonia, the Coral Sea

On Feb 26th we stopped in Lautoka Fiji.  We were not interested in taking any of the ship shore excursions.  We looked at some of the crafts being sold on the dock and then enjoyed a quiet day on board.  

Feb 27th we sailed to Noumea, New Caledonia, arriving on the 28th.  New Caledonia is the largest island in the South Pacific, after New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.  It was a two day stop in Noumea.  The first day we walked around town, going to the Maritime Museum and World War II Museum.   Both were very nice.  On the way back to the ship we happen upon a fabric store, so we used up some of our French Polynesian money purchasing fabric.

The next day, March 1st, we finally got our snorkeling trip.  We took a small boat out to Signal Island.   The water was fairly deep and somewhat cloudy, but it was a great trip.   The coral was amazing, some of the healthiest I have seen. The guides were excellent in finding sea creatures. 

 

A White Tipped Shark that swam under us as we snorkeled. 

 

 

A Sea Turtle sleeping on the bottom.  

 

Sea Turtle with a Romora hitching a ride on its back.  

 

 Coral near the surface. 

 

A selfie, I never looked better.  

March 2nd and 3rd were sea days.   We attended lectures, bingo, trivia, the evening shows, and washed clothes.  Tomorrow the 4th we arrive in Brisbane.   

Feb 25th Saturday Suva Fiji

Saturday dawned with beautiful weather and calm seas.  Nancy captured this great photo of sunrise.  

  

            Sunrise near Fiji

 

              As we pulled into Suva Fiji the captain supervised the docking. 

 

                I noted this ship in the harbor, with the fitting name "Rising No 2"

We decided to tour on our own today.  We hired a taxi to take us around for two hours for $60.   Our driver was Peter, a native Fijian.  He also works for defense contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.  He has been over there for 11 12-month tours.   Is role is to hire and train interpreters.   He gave us a wonderful tour, showing us the central part of the city, parliament, and the cricket field.   Our first stop was the Catholic cathedral.  We also visited the Anglican Church.  

 

    The lovely Anglican Church. 

 We spent most of our tour at the Fiji Museum.   A large part of the exhibit space contains various double hulled wooden sailing vessels. Another section contained a discussion and artifacts of the different cultures that have come to Fiji.  I found this rudder very interesting.  

 

   The salvaged remains of the rudder of the H.M.S. Bounty.   

 

Feb 23rd Samoa, Feb 24th, at Sea

Yesterday we visited America Samoa.    We finished the day in one of the ships specialty restaurants, looking over the stern as we set sail.  

 

         View of America Samoa from our table at the specialty restaurant as we sailed away.  

We went to sleep on Tuesday September 21st and woke up Thursday September 23rd, as we crossed the international date line during the night.   We arrived at Samoa, where are ship was met by local dancers.

 

                                           Greeting our ship in Samoa

In Samoa we took a ship sponsored tour of the island which included a stop on the coast, in a little village, at a waterfall, and finally at Gina's Garden, a lovely botanical garden planted with beautiful flowers.  While there we had had fresh fruit and coconut milk which we drank through a straw inserted into a chilled coconut, very good. The Samoans demonstrated climbing a tree to cut down and prepare coconuts and weave baskets from coconut fronds. 

 

                                                                         Samoan shore

 

                                   Samoan Waterfall

 

 

                   Flowers in Gina's Garden, Samoa

To, Friday the 24th, we had a quiet sea day with another lecture about Hollywood scandals in honor of the Oscars,   bingo, and reading our books.  Tomorrow- FIJI!

Feb 19 - 21st. Sea days and Pago Pago America Samoa.

Sunday and Monday were sea days.  There was a typhoon south of our course that caused the sea to be very rough.   Even some of the crew looked a little green.  At times the bow of the ship would rise up enough to hit the water with a shudder and a huge splash. 

During the days we attended some excellent lectures, one on the Polynesian navigators who explored from Taiwan, to Hawaii, to South America in small boats, without compass 800 years before European sailors explored the area.   Another lecture was on the history of the Pan Am Clipper planes.  

We played trivia, bingo, and enjoyed some wonderful meals.  

Today, Tuesday we arrived at Pago Pago America Samoa.   We walked around town, explored the small museum, and purchased some souvenirs.

 

                                                            Our cruise ship in Moorea. 

 

                                                        Our ship in Pago Pago

Feb 14 - 15th Trip to Tahiti

Our Quantas 747 flight left JFK at 6:00pm on Tuesday, and after a short layover and connection in LA, arrived in Tahiti at 5:00am on Wednesday the 15th.   It was already 82 degrees, which it stays basically all the time.   On arrival we were greeted be a hula dancer and musicians and we were leied with beautiful flowers. 

We checked into our hotel, the Tahiti Pearl Beach Resort, and took short naps.   All the rooms have ocean view balconies, and you can hear the sound of the surf pounding just below each balcony.  The beach below us is a black sand beach, as are most of the beaches on the island.  

 

                                                    Nancy on the beach in front of the hotel.  

We had a nice lunch and then took a four hour 120 km tour around the island of Tahiti.  Our guide, Maui, provide a great commentary on the history, culture, and geography of the island.  He showed us a number of waterfalls, wonderful beaches, a blowhole (which made an incredible dragon breath sound), and monuments.  

  
      We saw a number of waterfalls and a grotto full of water, a favorite swimming hole for the locals.

 

Memorial for the crew of the Bounty, who landed here before going on to Pitcairn Island, created by their decents.  

 

                                    Memorial for Captain Cook, at the site where he landed. 

 

                                 Light house designed by Robert Lewis Stepehson's father. 

We returned to the hotel for a nice sunset, excellent dinner, and early to bed.  Tomorrow we look around town a little bit and board the ship to begin our cruise. 

 

   Dinner - flank steak rolled with goat cheese, potatoes, and a tomato.   PS - The local beer is great!!!

Two more Moorea Sting Ray pictures.

 

 

         Picture of guide trying to hold Nancy on a rock as a stingray decides to swim between them. 

Moorea Shark

It looks like we can write a blog and then submit the pictures individually after each days blog.  We will give this approach a try.   

Here is one of the sharks that swam by us in Moorea.  

 

Moorea Sting Ray

 

Feb 17-18th Moorea and Bora Bora

On Friday the 17th our cruise ship took the short 12 mile cruise to the island of Moorea.   When you see pictures of Tihiti with jagged cliffs, it is this island.   

Our snorkeling tour scheuled for the morning was cancelled due to bad weather.   We were fortunate enough to get on the afternoon snorkeling trip.   The excursion left from shore via a small local boat.   We sailed past beautiful mountains, beaches, and resorts.  Our first stop was a shallow area, where if you were tall you could stand on the sandy sea bed.  Nancy stood on rocks or her tip toes.   The guides had food and soon a couple dozen sting rays were swimming with us.   You could touch there tops, but not their underside, where there mouth is, or their barbed tail.  You would be standing there and feel them brush by you.   A couple of sharks (two that I saw), swam by, but kept a distance of 30 to 40 feet.    I took some great pictures of the sting rays, and a couple good ones of one of the black tipped sharks.   Our next stop was in a slightly deeper area that had coral reefs and fish where we snorkeled for a half hour in the beautifully warm water.  On our way back to the ship they provided us wonderful fresh fruit.  

On return to the ship we showered and washed out our suits. We were in time to catch the first set of bingo games (4), for the cruise.  I won the first game, which was big enough to cover the price of the cards and put $3 in my pocket.   

We had dinner in the Terrace Cafe, which is the ship's buffet dining establishment.   We prefer it to the more formal main dinning room.  But we don't suffer much, given the food.   This cruise line, Oceania, is known for having the best food of any cruise line.  For example, the first night the special was roast pork and last night was roast top  sirloin.   But for every night of the cruise they also have lobster tail, lamb chops, a strip steak, prawns, and a sushi bar.  That is not to mention the appetizers, salads, soup (we had a great seafood gumbo last night) and deserts.

The ship headed to sea at dinner time, and the seas were very rough with a lot of rocking and rolling.  We could see the horizon move up and down about 40 feet out the back of the boat during dinner.  When the sea gets this rough it is hard to move around so we called it an early night.  

The entire night we were rocked in our sleep.   This morning we arrived in Bora Bora, which is part of French Polynesia, as are the other islands we have visited.   We were again scheduled for a morning snorkeling tour, but it  has been cancelled.  We are now scheduled for the afternoon snorkeling tour, if it goes.  In the mean time we are sitting in the crows nest (Horizons Lounge) relaxing.  

Unfortunately we have not yet resolve our problems on sending pictures.  We are hopeful to come up with a solution at some point.  

Feb 14 - 15th Trip to Tahiti

Our Quantas 747 flight left JFK at 6:00pm on Tuesday, and after a short layover and connection in LA, arrived in Tahiti at 5:00am on Wednesday the 15th.   It was already 82 degrees, which it stays basically all the time.   On arrival we were greeted be a hula dancer and musicians and we were leied with beautiful flowers. 

We checked into our hotel, the Tahiti Pearl Beach Resort, and took short naps.   All the rooms have ocean view balconies, and you can hear the sound of the surf pounding just below each balcony.  The beach below us is a black sand beach, as are most of the beaches on the island.  

We had to remove the pictures as we could not get the internet to accept our blog post.  We will try again later with the pictures. 

 

                                                    Nancy on the beach in front of the hotel.  

We had a nice lunch and then took a four hour 120 km tour around the island of Tahiti.  Our guide, Maui, provide a great commentary on the history, culture, and geography of the island.  He showed us a number of waterfalls, wonderful beaches, a blowhole (which made an incredible dragon breath sound), and monuments.  

  
      We saw a number of waterfalls and a grotto full of water, a favorite swimming hole for the locals.

 

Memorial for the crew of the Bounty, who landed here before going on to Pitcairn Island, created by their decents.  

 

                                    Memorial for Captain Cook, at the site where he landed. 

 

                                 Light house designed by Robert Lewis Stepehson's father. 

We returned to the hotel for a nice sunset, excellent dinner, and early to bed.  Tomorrow we look around town a little bit and board the ship to begin our cruise. 

 

   Dinner - flank steak rolled with goat cheese, potatoes, and a tomato.   PS - The local beer is great!!!

2017 South Pacific Cruise and Australia

Welcome to our travel blog and our 2017 South Pacific Cruise.    As we start this series of posts, we want to note that we can only launch the posts when we stop at islands and can find a free WiFi.   As a result we will only be posting every two to three days, and may have longer gaps if we can't find a WiFi.

Shortly we will be off on our Quantas Flight to Tahiti, we will be spending one night at the Tahiti Pearl Beach Resort, before boarding our cruise ship, the Oceania Sirena.

   

Wish us luck!!!   Nancy and Roger

Mon Sept 21, 2015–Thur Sept 24, 2015–Halifax, New York, and Home

Monday and Wednesday were sea days.    We listened to lectures and enjoyed shows on board the ship. 

On Tuesday we visited Halifax.    We had been there a couple of months earlier, so we confined our day to a walk on the boardwalk along the harbor, a visit to the Museum of the Atlantic, and lunch at the Old Triangle Alehouse, with the same waiter we had two months before.  Along the boardwalk are a number of plaques and monuments, many placed there by the Petty Officer Association.   The first two items below are a statue and plaque related to Cunard, who was born in Halifax, and started the Cunard Steamship Company.  I really like the statue in the third photo, that is in honor of the immigrants.

At the Museum of the Atlantic we learned about the Halifax explosion that occurred during World War I.   Two ships accidently ran into each other in the Narrows entering the harbor, one of the ships was carrying explosives for the war.   The collision caused a fire, and everyone was watching the fire and smoke that had risen to 13,000 feet when the ship blew up.   It was the largest man made explosion after the atomic bomb.    Thousands were killed in the explosion, fireball and fires, and tidal wave caused by the explosion.  Thousands were left homeless.    It was a very sad story, but the ability of the people to go on and rebuild was amazing.  

The Museum also has a number of items from the Titanic, as the city was the base for recovery operations.  They even have the only deck chair that was saved.

We wandered back to the ship on the board walk, and watched our crew paining the anchor chain.

On Thursday we arrived in New York, very early.   Nancy happened to catch the Verrazano bridge as we were coming it at 4:30am, and I happened to look back and see the Statue of Liberty that we pasted at about 5pm.   Otherwise we slept in until about 7am, had breakfast, and hung around the ship.   At 9:30am we left the ship for the last time, caught a taxi to Penn Station, and at 11:33 the train to Northampton.   I type this and will send this from the train.   At 4:03pm we should be in Northampton, and be picked up by Mike.

It was a wonderful trip, with amazing stops, weather that could not have been any better, and filled with new experiences and sites.   But we are very happy to be home.

Sat Sept 19th–Sun Sept 20th–Transatlantic Cruise St. Johns Newfoundland

Saturday was a sea day on the way to St. Johns.   The sea was rough with a lot of rolling motion, we wondered how far the ship could roll from side to side before it could not come back upright.

On Sunday we landed in St. Johns.   We walked around town for a half hour before we started our tour with Legends tours.   We were fortune to be in a van with only eight of us, as they had two chartered city buses to haul the rest of the participants around.   Our first stop was Cape Spear, which they describe as the easternmost point in North America.   We happen to know from our cruise that there is a point in Greenland, which is North America, that is farther east.  Cape Spear has some old lighthouses and some world war II bunkers and gun emplacements.   The German submarines were active in the area, even firing torpedoes through the narrow cut to the town harbor in the hopes of blocking the harbor.

Next we stopped at Petty Harbor, where the locals sail out to fish, particularly for Cod.  They are allowed to catch five Cod each per day.  Historically they would salt the Cod and store in in small shacks for a couple of months before drying it.   Now they eat it fresh or freeze it for later.

We then went to Signal Hill, with Cabot Tower on the top.   It was from here that Marconi proved there could be radio communication with Europe across the Atlantic.  We had a good view of our ship from Signal Hill and you can see how large it is compared to the city.

Our final stop was at Quidi Vidi, a cute little harbor with a very narrow entrance.

The entrance to the St. John’s Harbor is called the narrows, and is very narrow.   It is only three times wider then the ship.   We sailed out at night, with the locals firing muskets from Signal Hill.   The last photo shows the city as we are leaving.  There are two lights in the distance, very bright, one above the other.   As you sail into the harbor, you keep the two lights above each other and it keeps you on track as you sail through the Narrows into town.

After our tour we stopped at a little coffee shop to use the internet.   It was very slow, so we were only able to read a few emails.   We are sad that we have not been able to send more timely updates but our access to Wi-Fi has been impossible or very limited for more than a week.  Hope our luck is better in Halifax.