Archives
About a year and a half ago I was chatting with a friend of mine who was describing this amazing cruise she was planning in the Fall of 2023. It left out of Vancouver and wandered along the Alaskan coast before sailing across the ocean to Japan. A total of 23 days of sea voyaging and exploring. As she had booked a whole cabin, not wanting to share a room with someone… Read More
Finally! On land again. Overnight the ship took position and in the morning looking out my porthole I saw a small bay and a flat sea. That meant a landing was in my future. Because of the calm sea state it was an easy zodiac trip to Westpoint Island, an island home to a whopping two people. The island was also home to a very large colony of wandering albatross. These amazing… Read More
Today’s plan was to land at Fortuna Bay home to another large king penguin colony, although not as large as the previous day’s hoard at St. Andrew’s Bay, and a sizeable fur seal population. In addition, for those interested, there was going to be an opportunity to hike across the island to Stromness Bay. The hike traced part of the route that Shackleton and his men took to reach help once they… Read More
I spent the morning on the movie set of “Happy Feet”. We landed at St. Andrews Bay, home to about 400,000 king penguins, numerous fur seals, and my favorite, a bunch of elephant seals. The density of animals was overwhelming visually, aurally and olfactorily. The staff deliberately chooses landing sites in areas that minimize the disturbance to the animals so our landing site was some distance away from the heart of the… Read More
We are out in the open water heading towards South Georgia from the Antarctic peninsula. Sitting in the lounge at the stern of the ship I look out the 270 degrees of windows and see nothing but water and sky. It will be another day and a half before we see land. I have always wanted to be out in the middle of the ocean on a small boat and so I… Read More
We had an early start on day three having reached our destination, Mikkelsen Bay, overnight. Breakfast, which I skipped, was at 6:30 am with gangway ops starting as early as 7:15 am. The goal was to get everyone to shore for our first landing by 8 am spend a couple of hours there then return to the ship by 10 am because we had a long sail ahead of us to get… Read More
Going south for the winter is a time tested popular method in the northern hemisphere for avoiding the seasonal appearance of the cold, dark, and general miserable weather that descends on those living far from the equator. It is not uncommon for those living north of the 40th parallel to flee to Florida, Arizona or the Caribbean islands to bask in the sunlight and balmy weather of the tropics and sub-tropics. Certainly… Read More
After wandering around in Bangkok for the last three or so days I can admit that I am finally temple saturated. And market saturated. I am not, however, tired of the street food or the foot massages. These four things- temples, markets, street food, and foot massages, have bracketed my experiences not only in this amazingly diverse city, but for the whole month I have spent in the country. For the last… Read More
Every Saturday night Wua Lai Road, just south of the old city, is closed to traffic to accommodate a very extensive night market. I decided to go investigate even though I had been to the nearby night bazaar a few times. The Saturday night market was reputed to contain more artisan and craft goods than the regular night market so I set off to find out what that meant. I must take… Read More
It’s amazing how adaptable we are as humans. I’ve been here in Gaunshahar for two weeks and have completely settled into the routine of daily life. So much so that taking another cold shower, complete with washing my hair, seemed normal to me. The day starts around sunrise, usually sometime after 5:00 am. The house comes awake as people slowly get up; some are early risers, others sleep almost until breakfast time…. Read More
Recent Comments
 | Kathy on Hadrian’s Wall: Part 3 |
 | Sandy on Hadrian’s Wall: Part 3 |
 | Kathy on Luxor West Bank: Part 2 |
| Kathy on Luxor: East Bank |
| Kathy on Dashur and Giza |
Recent Comments