First post, I start planning for 2013-14 Philippines

4/20/13.  A month ago, Praxy surprised me a good one.  Out of a clear blue sky, she wistfully wished she could visit her homeland this winter.  I was a little shocked, while we were in the Philippines two winters ago, she commented she had no desire to return for 7 years!  [4/21-We are still talking about it and had a long discussion at the breakfast table.]  [4/29  This entry is going up soon.  I'm giving us a 90% chance that we will be taking this trip.]

But, I’m up to it.  I must admit, I have a little trepidation, though.  I remember just how rigorous that last trip was for me.  But…I now know the lay of the land and we are not really planning to visit any new areas.  Uh, that isn’t entirely true…I just requested information about snorkeling with whale sharks in Donsol.  That would be about a 5 hour ride from Tacloban, so why not?  Two nights accommodations, two breakfasts, two snorkeling trips, and gear for about $300.

Ubetcha!

The real reason I started this entry was to track flight prices from Lewiston, Idaho to Cebu, Philippines.  We would have to leave the US on about the 4th of November and return sometime after the new year, so far it looks like January 10th.  Checking prices…$1264 each 4/20.  Not bad, but I’m going to hold out a bit.  I think the price should get into the $1100ds and we have 6 months to go.  Last time, I scored $1240 something and paid in July.  That works for me.  Korean Air had a fare from Spokane to Cebu for around $1120.

I am visualizing our trip running something like this.  Leave Lewiston on 11/4, arrive Cebu 11/5.  Fly to Tacloban on 11/7 or 11/8, preferably 11/7 on Cebu-Pacific Airline.  The two days in Cebu are for dealing with jet lag.  Plus, I can visit some old friends.  Martin is getting up in years, his wife, Dione, passed away during our last trip.  They are lovely people; their daughter Desire, nephew Vavan,   Linden and Jean, who are son and daughter-in-law  I just checked the fare: for us and two luggages each is…   Cebu-Pacific has a promotional fare from Cebu to Tacloban for, get this, $7 each with no luggage plus taxes and fees.   Everything included comes to $102 with our luggage.  It is a thirty minute flight on a comfortable Airbus 320.  To do it another way…Fast Catamaran from Cebu to Ormoc, Leyte.  Nice boat, but a three hour trip.  Van Van’s micro-bus to Tacloban, crowded.  About 6 hours, a slightly lower price, and a hassle with the luggage.  Which one are we going to do?  Duuuuhhhh, the flight?  I will pay in advance from the US if we do this.  Paying in advance for ferries or flights in the Philippines saves you huge bucks.

Her college has a class reunion on Saturday November 9 near Salcedo.  I’m looking forward to that, the reunions have been fun and I am always more than welcome.    Let’s see, the 11th would be time to inspect the house and start purchasing materials.  I know we need…

1 A complete roof.  I don’t know if we will go with Nipa (palm, it doesn’t last long but it is cheap) or metal (lasts longer, more expensive, rusts in a year or so).  Other possibilities are a plastic composite and tiles.
2 A door where the tin is nailed and propped facing the ocean.  That door was totally shot.    Plus the other door isn’t the greatest either.
3 Above the door on the seaward side, there are some decorative bricks that have corroded in the salt air.  They will need to be replaced or filled.  I’m thinking replaced because of ventilation.
4 Some sort of hand railing will need to be put in eventually.
5 Inside, everything needs to be replaced if I’m going to stay there for any length of time.  Electrics, plumbing, furniture, cupboards, etc.
6 I think we should paint the outside for protection.  I’m not sure of this, though.  My experience with seaside homes is very very limited.  That might make a mess. [4/21, Nope, the paint won't last.  Marine paint has to be shipped from the US and will only last a few years anyway.]

With that many repairs, we think we will stay in Salcedo, with occasional nights in Asgad.  We have some relatives with a very nice vacant house in Salcedo.  Probably 2-3 weeks.  I enjoyed staying in Asgad last trip, but I always feel like I’m imposing.  Everyone always gives the Americano the best bed, that means someone else is on the floor or couch.  I’ll probably pack my air mattress again.

[4/21  We will have the use of a new house while we stay in Salcedo.  Praxy's niece has just completed it.  We may have to buy a bed, table, chairs, etc. as the place is totally new but that will be no problem.  Call it rent!   Praxy has some household supplies stored in Asgad.  We are going to rebuild our house as a beach house or vacation house.  Praxy has no plans to live there permanently.  It will be for family use while visiting on holiday]

Back to Tacloban and a 3-4 week stay.  This is going to be a test for both of us but especially me to see if I can handle the extended time just “hanging around” during retirement.  We will rent a furnished house, maybe I can find something before we leave the US.  While in Tacloban, I’m going to sneak off to Donsol for the sharks.   We will look into house prices and locations to pass the time.  I’ll also try to meet some of the local American expats for advice.  Praxy had a couple of different people approach us during our last visit trying to sell us their houses.  Prices were very reasonable, around $30,000 USD.  We’ll see.

Why Tacloban?  Several reasons.  It’s a larger city with amenities; good medical, American supplies, American expats, good airport, protection from typhoons, good restaurants, plenty of hardware stores, close to Salcedo and Asgad, etc.  I don’t know if we want to be right in town, but a few miles out would be great.  [5/4  We are going to spend some extra time in Salcedo and check it out.  There are many expats in Guian, which is about 15 miles away.  We'll check out supplies, medical, accessibility, and ambiance while we are there.  Although is area is almost "frontier" in the Philippines, it is now starting to develop.]

Back to Salcedo and Asgad for Christmas and New Years with Praxy’s family.  I’m going to load them up with fireworks if possible on New Year’s Eve.  And try not to be sick with Chief Lapu Lapu’s Revenge.  For old times sake, I want to whack the buoy with a stick at midnight.  It used to be a ritual on December 31.

See our house peeking around the buoy?  Let’s say you are heading east.  After crossing the beach there is lots of ocean.   If you didn’t bump into one of the Marshall islands, the next solid land is in Nicaragua.  Our area is one of the farthest east in the Philippines.  Some of Mindanao is further east, but I will probably never see it.  Too many radical Muslims on that island.  If/when Randy and Celia are home, we may go visit them in Bhutan.

After New Years, maybe a visit to Sequijor, or Dumaguete.   Fly out around the 10th of January.  [4/21  Praxy mentioned that she would like to spend three days in Seoul on the return.  I loved Seoul on our last trip, a stopover would be nice.  I'm going to look into the increase of airfare prices.] [4/27  Called Genesis Travel in Lynnwood, Washington.  The stopover in Seoul would amount to about $120 each.  It's a go!  A side note, I called Asiana for a quote.  That price was $1,700 more for the stopover.  It sure pays to shop around!]

That should cover my urge to write for the day.  I’m going to post this later.  I don’t want to post this early and then see us change our plans.

[4-29 There will be another entry or two before we leave.  One will be for people that have never flown a trans-Pacific flight or may never get the chance.  This also will be of great help to a first time flyer.  Another of my "visit a place you may never get to see" type of posts.   There will be sections devoted to...what to take with you to make the trip more comfortable, facts about the aircraft and route, a real time flight tracking map so you can follow our flight,  and what to wear and why.  While on board, a video of the takeoff (hopefully), pictures of the interior, how to combat boredom and fatigue, meals, movies, sleeping, etc.  I will also describe the Seoul transfer in detail and the continuing flight to Cebu.]

[5/4 Here is a youtube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VBJe_CL20E&feature=youtu.be to our take off from Seattle in 2009.  The rain was absolutely pouring, water was streaming from the fuselage and making video difficult.  I sat and pondered, how many hundreds or thousands of pounds on water collect on an aircraft this size?  Of course it was mostly blown off (which takes energy, time, and fuel) before we lifted off.

I'm about sure we are going to go, so this first blog is going on my page as well. ]

4/20  $1263.30

4/24  $1258.50

4/27  $1263.30  Adding the 4 night stop in Seoul makes the total right around 1,380 each

4/29  $2358.50 in the  AM, $1263.30 in the PM

5/4  $1263.30  Seems to be in a holding pattern.  I’m sure there will be a sale some day soon!

Odds and Ends

I’m going through my stuff and coming up with the odd things that didn’t make my blog.

Total distance the ship traveled on the 14 day segment was about 3740 nautical miles, which is about 4300 statute miles for us landlubbers.  Or about 6919 kilometers for my readers in the Philippines.  I cannot find a cruise log for the first seven day segment.  It was probably about 2,000 miles as well.  We were steaming about the same amount of time.  So the total distance was somewhere around 6,000 to 6,500 miles.  Ships don’t go fast, but they go steady for long periods of time.  It doesn’t seem that far when you are on board, but the numbers add up!

At Costa Maya Mexico, I mentioned I got to swim with a dolphin.  One picture is posted as my profile picture on Facebook, but there were several others that I bought.  I couldn’t do much with the pictures until I got home, they were on a DVD and my little netbook computer does not have a CD or DVD reader.   Getting the pictures from an internet cafe seemed to be a hassle, so I decided to wait and post when we got home.  Here they are.

As you can see, I was having a blast.  Some of the pictures that I didn’t post looked like I was scared or nervous.  That was not the case.  The dolphin trainer was giving me instructions and I was concentrating on what he was saying.   I never felt that there was the least little bit of danger.

The dolphin was a perfect gentleman.  And I say gentleman.  The dolphin’s name was Eddie.  The female dolphin didn’t seem to want to perform at the moment.  But she joined up with the other two in the tank and they gave me a flying send off.  Pretty amazing animals.   They weren’t as big as I thought they would be.  Maybe 300lbs or so.

I went through my pictures and came up with something else that is kinda cool.  The little animals that the room stewards make at bedtime for the passenger’s amusement.  Novia just LOVES these little surprises in the evening.  You can tell by the delighted smiles.

An aardvark.

Praxy had to bling her aardvark up a bit.

I think this is a bear.

A very large butterfly.

A doggie.

A spider monkey hanging in our room on the last formal night.

Another formal night visitor.  We aren’t sure about this one.  A pig?  The snout looks right.

Watch out for the sting, a vicious looking scorpion.

A seal.

On our honeymoon cruise, this larger seal greeted us after a formal dinner.

This trip, a monkey greeted us on the first formal night.

LOOKOUT, A SSSSSSNAKE!

And last, a squid.

There are a several books available on how to fold these adorable creatures.   Also instructions for free on line.

If I find anything else, I’ll add it here.

12/27/12  4:30pm

Day 20 and beyond-Cayman Islands to home

Finishing the trip in one last entry.  Why?  Because not much happened that was interesting.  I was still sick with a cold (Cruise Crud #1) and I wasn’t very active.  I surely didn’t feel like writing much.  I did write about the lower deck tour while sick, but it was a real effort.  That whole day I would run up to the lido for food, then retreat to my cabin.

Day 20-Gerorgetown, Cayman Islands.   I woke up sick.  But not too sick to check things out.  We missed out on a nice island tour for a very reasonable price, but I didn’t know if I was up to running around in a rig for two hours.  Looking back, I think it would have been OK, but at the time I didn’t know.  We tendered off the ship…

The tender platform being put in place by the crew.  Georgetown doesn’t have a large dock.  There were four ships tendering that morning.

 

 

Nearest to furthest;  Carnival Valor, Carnival Legend, Ryndam.  The Legend arrived late and was still getting the anchor set when Praxy took this photo.  The Seven Seas Navigator was off to the left of this picture.  It looked pretty impressive from the shore, all those ships lined up.  Sometimes there are as many as  seven in this port at one time.  The streets must be full of pale skinned tourists turning red with a sunburn.

There it is.

There was a restaurant across the street and a nice area to snorkel.  These large fish were hanging around.  Obviously, the restaurant was feeding them so the snorkelers would have something to look at up close.  This was REAL close.

 

Even though I felt poorly, I could easily get a smile on my face for something odd like this.

Praxy shares rum with the local buccaneers.  The word “buccaneer” came from a native language.  A local indian tribe cooked their food over open would fires, much like the way we barbeque here in the US, the word was something like “bucco”.  The European pirates liked the idea and adopted it.  The pirates then became known as buccaneers.

We spent most of the morning sitting next to the main road along the ocean, watching the people and the traffic.  This sign was across the street, some friends we met on the ship took this picture.  Shortly after this we returned to the ship, I was getting pretty tired.

We took off for Tampa and come across some of the roughest waves of the trip.  There were a lot of people hiding in their cabins sick.  Praxy got a little sick as well.  But I didn’t, at least I didn’t get seasick.  Getting food on the lido was an adventure, people staggering everywhere.  Too bad I couldn’t drink.  Getting drunk of a heaving deck might cancel each other out; meaning a person could walk strait.

I saved up some energy for dinner that night.  The last night of a cruise is usually steak and lobster.  And it was.  I had prime rib and lobster, Praxy just had a lobster.  They were good Maine lobsters and quite tasty.  And Holland America will still give you a second lobster at no extra charge.  Most other cruise lines charge $7 more each.  I doubt if Holland will be able to offer this much longer.  And no, I didn’t have a second one.  One was plenty with the prime rib.

The waves were particularly bad the next morning as we rounded the tip of Cuba.  People were starting to gripe a bit.  The captain came on the intercom and mentioned that it should get better when we neared Florida.  He was correct.  By noon things had calmed down.  That last day was a sea day, I mainly lounged around trying to get better.  Praxy spent a lot of time going from activity to activity.  She danced, went to a cooking demo, and danced again.

We arrived the next morning in Tampa on time.  Got off the ship at 8:45am.  Through customs in 5 minutes.  Caught our return van to the airport and we were on the road by 9am.  Flight out of Tampa, on time at noon.  Flight out of Minneapolis, on time at 5:30pm.  Good weather in Spokane, Leslie picked us up after a 10 minute wait.

I mentioned the above because events usually don’t go that smoothly in the winter.  In fact, we hardly had a glitch the whole trip.  Amazing.  I planned our trip out carefully and our vacation went almost to scrip.  If we had been a few days later, it may have been chaos for us.  It’s the 27th of December and people are having trouble traveling all over the eastern half of the country.

Lucky us.

We did have a good snowstorm going near Spokane.  The first half of our trip was slow going with 1-2 inches of snow on the road.  We got out of it, though and had a nice ride back.

Oh yeah, Cruise Crud #1 is respiratory.  Cruise Crud #2 is just that.  You can’t stop going number 2.  Praxy has been sick the last few days, unfortunately.  She caught my cold and has spent a lot of time sleeping it off.

There were a lot of people sick by the end of the 14 day segment of the cruise.  This seems to be an ongoing problem in the industry.   Lucky for all of us, the problems on the Ryndam were mostly limited to a bad head cold.  One of the employees came down with a very high fever, but he was back to work in three days.  Several passengers were restricted to their quarters with a fever as well.  I had a very high fever until I doctored the nasty sinus infection I’d given myself while snorkeling.  It was gone the next morning or I would have stayed in my cabin for the end of the cruise.

I’m not done yet, I still have a little more to write about.  It doesn’t seem to fit in this post, so I’ll put up another in a bit.  Odds and ends.

12/27/12 noon

 

 

Day19-“Visit” places you are never likely to see.

Notice I’ve changed my blog title. It used to be titled “My Adventures”.  Lame.  Now it’s titled “Visit” places you are never likely to see.

If you’ve read all my blog entries, you know just how adventuresome I am.  Now just how many people to you know that have been in as many odd places as I have been?

When we got back from snorkeling, a message was on the phone. The day before, I had encountered a maintenance crew scraping on an odd weld in a very odd place. I laughed and them asked them about it, the chief said that they had cut a hole in the ship to replace a clothes washer. The laundry was on the other side, deck two. I wistfully mentioned I’d like to see the interior of the ship below the passenger decks and he said that it would probably be no problem. (!!!)

I didn’t even clean up from snorkeling, I was too excited.  I zipped up to the main desk and asked.  I told the clerk the worst answer I could get was ‘no’, anything thing else was better.   I mentioned my first tour at that time.  The clerk was quite surprised I’d been on the Ryndam bridge, that was in 2008.  He was on the bridge only once, on his first day of work.  The desk man said he thought it could be arranged.  It was.  1:30pm on the 12th.

The hotel manager, Simon, was kind enough to take 1/2 out of his busy schedule to show us around.  It just about had to be him.  There are only five people on the ship that have keys to every one of the rooms we visited.  Captain, Staff Captain (2nd in command), Hotel Manager, Head of Security, Chief Engineer.  There is a lot of stuff around, a lot of valuable stuff, and a lot of people working or playing on board.  Security is important.  There is a crew compliment onboard of 525 and 1250 or so passengers.

There is no just way that very many other passengers could be allowed to take this tour.  There is not a lot of room, a bigger group wouldn’t fit.  Space is at a premium, there is something jammed into about every corner.  Also, the walking areas have unexpected tripping hazards.  Finally, an important person has to take some of his or hers precious time to walk your around.  I will NOT mention this tour to anyone else while onboard this ship, except our room stewards.  I can see it now, people whining to the Hotel Manager “Those people got a tour, why not me?”  I got the tour because I’ve got the guts to ask!  And the sense to keep my mouth shut!   I’m sure there is a record of my tour of the bridge is in their computer system, which few people know about to this day.

Except for my relatives and readers.   This second unusual cruise ship tour is now what I will share with you.  Here we go!

Simon has his fingers in just about everything on the ship that doesn’t have to do with physical operations, by that I mean navigation and engineering.  19 years of seniority, he said he had done many of the jobs we saw.   He was issuing instructions to people as we toured.

I think Simon agreed to this tour for two reasons.  One, I asked.  Two, it was a good chance to stick his nose in the odd corners and have a look around.  I know the feeling.  You get in a rut and forget about some things unless they are waved under your nose when something goes wrong with them.

We took the stairs down to C deck.  Been there before.  You go down there to leave the ship for shore tours.  The gangway is stowed off to the side, I had figured out that much all ready.  There are the Human Resource offices, the travel office, and a barber shop.  I saw the doors, but I didn’t know what went on behind them.

The travel office handles employment and transportation for the Philippine and Indonesian workers.  There are always foreign workers coming and going, there are two people that handle the logistics.  Booking flights, arranging training, paperwork, legalities, and transfers.  They obviously need a barbershop.  The crew needs to look good at all times.  Now I’m wondering.  The men are covered by the barbershop.  Where do the women get their hair done?  Same place?  I’ll ask Simon if I see him.  Or Gen, our Filipina friend that works in the massage therapy.  (12/20 8:15pm  Talked to Gen.  The ladies handle their own hair for the most part.  Some cut each other’s hair.  The entertainers have to look sharp.  They get a 50% discount at the beauty parlor on deck 11 if they think they need the service)

Human Relations is just that.  The liaison between crew and officer, they handle the problems that 500 odd people living in close proximity are bound to have.  And also handle the positive stuff, bonuses and payroll.

Just aft of this is the senior officer’s mess and lounge.  They have a private room with four tables.   A steward was in attendance, but no one else was there.  He might be there most of the time.  The room looked very comfortable and pleasant.  Food is brought in from the passenger kitchen on deck 7.  I had kind of assumed that the bridge staff ate upstairs by the bridge.  Nope.  By the way, the ship is honeycombed with elevators.

Just aft of that is another mess and lounge, this one for the petty officers.  Not as nice, but still very comfortable.

Just aft of this is the crew lounge with video games, store, big screen TV, karaoke, and a foosball table.  It was rather sterile in comparison to the other lounges, but I was glad to see that the hard working crew has a nice area to relax and unwind.  Two off duty crewman were playing Gameboy in a cubicle.  There is also an internet station, but I’m guessing it doesn’t get used much.  I’m squawking about the high internet prices and I’m betting I get paid a lot more than the average crewman gets paid.

On the aft side of the room is the serving area for crew mess.  A wall separates it from the kitchen.  There are four meal times a day, 6-8am,  11am-1pm,   4-6pm, and 8:30-11:30pm.  There are two complete menus made for the crew at each meal time.  One side of the kitchen prepares Philippine, the other Indonesian.   It looked too small to prepare the volume of food to feed that many crew members, but the main meal item is rice.  They go through about 500lbs of rice a week!

Simon pointed out halls that led to the crew quarters.  I asked about the quarters, they are much smaller than the passenger’s quarters.  Not surprising.  Two people to a room.

No pictures until now.  I was not allowed to invade the crew’s privacy.

Next, the loading area that provides ship-to-shore transfer of cargo.  The pictures aren’t the greatest.  Simon was in a hurry, I didn’t feel comfortable dawdling.

These folded tables are actually cargo boxes.  Our luggage goes in them when it’s transferred to and from the ship.

Alas, I was hurrying.  This is blurry.  Pallets, bicycles, some recycling.  This area would have been full when we arrived in Curacao.  The ship offloaded a dump truck load of garbage!

Holland America is proud of this area, it’s their recycling room.  There were pallet loads of flattened boxes.

They also grind the food waste into a slurry.  That is done on the other side of that wall.  I’m not sure how it is disposed.   Best guess, it’s probably dumped overboard for the sea creatures to eat.

Holland America also has a sewage treatment plant on board, it has to be on A deck.   They have just about the best recycling/waste disposal program in the world for cruise lines.  Last I saw, they were the highest rated in the world.

One of many cold rooms, this one is the banana room.  At the start of the cruise, this and the following storage rooms were all stacked solid.  About this time it occurred to me that all this stuff had to be stowed.  It comes in on pallets randomly, except that cold goods are packed with cold goods and so on.  They form a huge bucket brigade on C deck on the first day of the cruise and everyone gets the supplies, food, paper products, whatever, put away as quickly as possible.

One of the kitchen prep rooms.  There are two others.  I had assumed the prepping was done in the main kitchen.   Wrong.  Most of the prepping is done on the C deck, the prepared foods are taken by elevator to the kitchens for final cooking.  We’ll see this dolphin by the Lido pool tonight.  There is a dessert extravaganza at 10pm.  I will probably miss it as I’m still not feeling the greatest.   Praxy and I are perhaps the only passengers that know this is going to be the centerpiece tonight.

We continued on.  A full meat butchering room.  A lot of times they buy meat by the quarter or half and custom butcher it.   Two florists.  One was leaving at Tampa, the other was training to take over.   Holland America insists on fresh flowers throughout the ship.  I now know where the beautiful orchids come from that grace our tables at breakfast.  They are live and in pots, not many of the flowers on board are cut!

Brrr.   A freezer room.  Not sure what was in here.  Can’t remember now.

Eggs and dairy.

Whoa, this was really really cold.  See the condensation in the picture?  Ice cream and other frozen goodies.  Across the hall was another closed and locked door.  Morgue.  This may sound a bit macabre but, cruises attract an older crowd and some of them aren’t physically well.   (We have had four or five people leave the ship in the last 20 days for medical reasons.  The person can be hospitalized or flown back to the US or both.  Sometimes they are airlifted off the ship.  No one has died that I know of.  Someone DID die on our honeymoon cruise.)   The body is held in the cold room until the ship returns to the survivor’s chosen port and the body is then removed from the ship.  In the US, the body is turned over to a coroner.  Simon mentioned that this room was not the place where you wanted to end your cruise.

Not cold at all.  Dry storage for canned goods and such.  They have a good supply of spices.  Not much canned stuff.  Most foods on the Ryndam are made from fresh ingredients.

This room was chilly.  It’s for storage of the cookable dry goods like rice, wheat, polenta, quinoa, sugar, etc.

Storage for the housekeeping department.  Bleach, cleaning supplies, soap, so on.

Blast it, I didn’t get a picture of the meat storage room.  It was impressive.  Hundreds and hundreds of pounds of chicken, duck, beef, pork on rows and rows of shelves.  One room frozen, the other thawed and ready for use this evening.   Rows of things like prime rib, duck breasts, steaks, roasts, pork tenderloins, whole chickens, long tubes of hamburger.  Come to think of it, I didn’t see any seafood.  It had to be in one of these refrigerators or freezers.

We dropped down a deck and came upon the thing that started this tour, the laundry.  We are now at the rear of the ship, starting forward.  Or at least close to the rear.  I could hear the engine room nearby.

One of the smaller washers, maybe 50lbs capacity.

Dry cleaning.  They don’t use the harsh chemical dry cleaning method on the ship and Simon was quick to point this out.  I was glad.  That chemical that they used to use always gave me a splitting headache.  And it’s extremely flammable.

Their large washer, about 200lbs capacity.  I thought they might have a bigger one, but no.  I’ve seen bigger.  A lot bigger.  I worked at a laundry in Boise that had 500-750lbs machines.  But this bugger is the biggest I’ve seen since those days (college).

A mechanic was working on this one.  He looked like an electrician.  Across the room.

This is a mangle.   A very large and heavy power driven iron with numerous heated rollers.  I figured they would have one, and they did.  Ever wonder how a professional laundry gets those perfect folds? And those crisp perfect tablecloths and sheets?  Small businesses have the heated clamshell type of steam press.  But it takes one of these huge and expensive machines if you’ve got a large volume of laundry. The old timey ones can weigh tons (The giant mangle at Steiner Corporation in Boise was quite the antique.  It weighed about two tons.  Ten feet wide, twelve feet long.  I think it had about 24 rollers of different sizes).   This one was big, about 8 by 10 and probably more efficient.  One person feeds, another person on the other end receives and stacks.   It can do a huge job in one heck of a hurry.  Two people for sheets or tablecloths, perhaps 6-8 to do something small like shop cloths or table napkins.

A smaller, one person mangle.  I’ve never seen one like this before.

The little city-in-a-ship continues.  Sewing shop.  Three people employed here.  That’s a lot of sewing.  Does he ever see the light of day?  Ha, I’m sure he does.  The crew seems well treated and happy.  For the most part, everyone we saw smiled and waved.  Some looked a little shocked to see us chumming around with the big boss.

A couch or chair gets ripped by a passenger?  Or gets to looking worn?  No problem.  An upholstery shop with material for about everything on board.

The linen room.  This is where the stewards get their laundry for the guests.  Pick up what you need, find the elevator, and you’re ready.

Off a load goes to the passenger cabins.

I tried to get a picture of this, but I missed it.  A watertight door.  It closes in an emergency if the hull is breached.

There was still a lot more to see, I’m sure.  Our tour ended at this point and we were still at the back of the ship.  Probably a lot of crew quarters, they gotta sleep somewhere.  We caught a little elevator up and ended up in the steward room aft on floor six.  Looking in from the hall, you would never know that there was an elevator there.  It’s carefully tucked around a corner.

There is another ultra-exclusive tour on the Ryndam in my blog.  It is in my previous section about my honeymoon cruise under the“About the ship” entry.   The bridge.  Check it out, it’s worth hunting for.  The invitation from Holland America in 2008 requested that I or my family “…not mention this tour to your fellow passengers”.

Now, if I can just get that engine room tour!

12/20/12  9:04pm  AST

Day18-Oranjestad, Aruba, Netherlands Antilles

Shorter day today.  The ocean journey from Curacao to Aruba takes only a short time, they are not far apart.  Not so many pictures, either.   Expensive cameras and salt water are not a good mix.

Also, I’ve come down with a cold.  I was pretty sick for a while last night, with a high temperature.  Going snorkeling with a cold is something I don’t recommend.  The pressure from diving drove the yuck into my sinuses and I got a nasty sinus infection.  Fortunately for me, I still had the Zithromycin left over from the Philippine trip.  I figured out at about 10pm last night what was going on.  Two pills in and I’m feeling a lot better.  Sadly, no more rum punch for me.  No alcohol with antibiotics.

Up bright and early, I watched us dock.  The Caribbean Princess pulled in right behind us.  She had left Curacao earlier than us, but had to wait to dock since we were out first.  But I got a surprise, another unexpected cruise ship.

Holland American’s Prinsendam showed up after the first two ships were parked.  For some reason, her schedule was changed late.  After I’d printed out the list of ports and ships.  Not too worry, though.  She is a smaller ship.  No huge crowds on her.

While I was watching the Prinsendam, another passenger told me “Hey, if your getting pictures, take one of the bar down there”.  OK.

On the lower floor is some windows covered with paper.  So it was closed.  Big deal, right?  Then he went on.  “That was the bar where  Natalee Hollaway was picked up before she was murdered”.   I asked him how he knew.  He replied that he had been to Aruba many times.  “That bar used to be called ‘Charlies’.”

Right there next to the cruise dock is that infamous bar.  Didn’t see the motel and I’m not that interested in that kind of thing anyway.

Our snorkeling trip left at 9, so we had time to look around.  Both of us found some things to buy in the shops near the ship.  I got two Aruba polo shirts and Praxy got some hand carved napkin holders.  The locals do not barter on Aruba.  The posted price is what you pay, like it or not.  These were the first really decent pocketed shirts I’ve seen so far.  I need pocket T shirts now.  A pocket to hold my reading glasses.

Time to board our little catamaran for the 1 hour drive (sail) to the snorkeling area.

They hoisted a sail, but I think that the sail would create a lot of drag.  Still, it looks cool.

Novia was ecstatic to go snorkeling.   Her pluck at trying new things while on this trip has impressed me.  We were given inflatable life jackets for safety, so I puffed a couple of breathes into hers to help support her.  Soon she was happily paddling about looking at all the fishes.  She also picked up on the breathing underwater very quickly.  It took me about a day to get used to it, her it was 5 minutes.  After snorkeling a reef near the shore, we went out to the shipwreck.

Under the waves about 10-20 feet is a sunken German warship.  When World War II started, the captain suddenly found himself in a difficult position with no defense.  Rather than giving the ship to the Allied forces, he chose to deliberately sink it.  He and his shipmates were prisoners for the entire war on a nearby island.

This was a difficult place to snorkel because of the strong current.  We were bushed by the time we got back on board.  This is where I was diving, I wanted to go down and get a close look at the wreck.  I had to give up at about 12 feet because my sinuses were plugged, the pain was excruciating.  Little did I know that I was going to pay for those dives severely that evening.

But I’m still going, writing on Thursday afternoon.  I just got back from “Team Trivia”, a favorite of mine in the afternoon.  I checked our position on the way back to my cabin.  We are just south of Jamaica; looking out, I can’t see it off the starboard side.  But, have I got something special for my readers.   Read on.

12/20/12 5:35pm Atlantic Standard time

Day 17-Willemstad Curacao, Netherland Antilles

I’m not even behind for a change.  Amazing.  But I’ve got to back-track a bit before I start on Curacao.

Last night was the second to the last formal night so we decided to dress up and eat in the dining room.  We got there at 5:30 and we were seated immediately.  But, there is no rush for the formal dining.  We were done with dessert around 7:30.  The meal was excellent as usual.  But that isn’t what I was going to talk about.

There was an entertainer on board, Kuba.  A musician, it was claimed he played unusual instruments.  OK, fine.  We wanted to go.  To kill time we wandered around and found a female duet playing classical music.  A pianist and a violinist, they were elegant and the music was beautiful.  We sat entranced until it was time for the stage show.  We vowed to return later.

Kuba turned out to be a virtuoso.  His main claim to fame was the Vibraphone, an instrument similar to a xylophone but not near as heavy.   He stated that a xylophone was too bulky to carry on tour.  He played rock, classical, and salsa and he was fun to watch. 

Then came the odd.  A “thumb drum” from Africa.  He had found it in Argentina in a second hand shop, bought it, and learned to play it.   Very entertaining.

Then came the bizarre.   Sitting on the edge of the stage was this funny looking box with an antenna sticking out of it.  I thought it was a receiver for a microphone, but no.  It was a theremin. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theremin

Kuba is Polish and his accent threw me a bit so I didn’t get the name for sure.   But I’m uploading from home and got it after doing a google seach.

Ever seen the 50’s movie “Forbidden Planet” or the 50’s version of “The Day the Earth Stood Still?”  Or I should say heard the soundtrack of those movies?  That strange music played in those, the sci-fi sounding squeally stuff is made by that instrument.  But, the instrument is not touched to be played.  There is an electromagnetic field set up between the ends of the instrument.  Kuba held his hands in the air and got tones.  One hand controls the volume.  The hand that is nearest the antenna controls the pitch. 

The instrument is extremely sensitive to hand position; that is what makes the strange sounds.  Even moving your arm, neck, or mouth can change the pitch.  Kuba said that the only thing he could move on his entire body while he was playing the thermi was his two hands and his eyeballs.  Otherwise, the pitch would get thrown off.  He played a ’60s mellow rock tune (and I can’t remember the name of it at this moment) and played it nearly perfectly.  He said it took years of practice to develop the hand control to make the tune sound correct.

Gee, you learn something new every day.

Afterwards, we returned to the duet and sat through another set.  It was soooo relaxing, we ordered drinks, munched on chocolates, and enjoyed.  At the completion of that set, I asked the young ladies for their home country.  Ukraine. 

The previous afternoon our captain mentioned that the approach into Willemstad was interesting and picturesque.  Worth getting up early to see.  OK, I did just that on his recommendation.

Wow.  Our ship was going to fit there?  I could see the oil refinery behind the bride but…

Nothing that way but the sunrise.

Yup, here we go.

In further down the narrow canal.  The Dutch influence is quite obvious in this photo.  Every building is colorfully painted.   At the bottom, the long boat looking structure.  A floating bridge on a turnstile.   There is a free ferry when the bridge is stowed, that is the blue boat in the foreground.

Past the bridge, we tied off on the edge of the narrow channel.  Looking to the other side of the channel, more colorful shops and buildings.  We went inside for breakfast, packed up our stuff, and headed off to see the town.

We caught the ferry across the channel.  The Holland America ship Amsterdam had come in behind us and tied up closer to the harbor entrance.   Another ship was also due in, the Caribbean Princess.  No room here, she tied up elsewhere. 

We wandered over to the tourist kiosk and we were confronted with a young lady selling a two hour island tour.  Ok, fine.  But we would come back.  I had other plans.

I was looking for Wi-Fi to upload my blog.  I figured McDonalds would work just fine and sure enough, there was one near the downtown area.  But something was wrong with their setup.  After a futile 1/2 hour, I disgustedly gave up and started to head back to the ship.  But, another little restaurant had free Wi-Fi and everything worked great.  Hopefully you read those posts before this one.

Locals drinking their morning coffee.  The tourist shops are here all right, but prices seemed reasonable.  Praxy bought a new swim suit as I caught up on communicating with friends and relatives.

Back to the kiosk, and on to the tour tram.

The open air bus looked pretty comfortable, for $15 each we took a seat.

We drove through town looking at the usual buildings, not much new.  But this is a good one.  How would a person know unless you took a tour.

Hard to get photos in a moving bus when you are on the wrong side.  This is a fresh fruit and vegetable market.  I’ve seen them everywhere.  This one is most unusual.  It is a floating market.  Farmers and merchants from Venezuela travel 25-100 miles over from the mainland to ply their wares on Curacao.  The tables are on the road, but everything behind is on a boat.  The merchants stay until they run out of supplies.  By then another comes to replace them.  Curacao has very little farm land so much of the supplies come from South America.

Then off to a local distillery.

 

 

This is some cleaning concoction, not at all drinkable.  Has a strong eucalyptus aroma.  There was a filler to the right and she has an extra bottle to top off bottles that are a little short.

The high tech label machine.

And other high tech boxing machine.  This stuff smelled like cough syrup.

 

Sampling table.  All of their liquors had a lot of coloring in them, I usually don’t buy that kind of thing.  Bright blue, red, green, orange, yellow, except for the coffee liquor

The coffee should naturally provide enough colorization.  This stuff was very very tasty.  We are at our limit for alcohol coming back into the states, so I had to pass.

As we sampled the liquor, the heavens opened and the rain came down in buckets.  We got a little wet in our open air bus, but not too bad.

We continued our tour around the island.

The little cove on the far side of the big bay is where Christopher Columbus landed in 1499.  The Dutch eventually wrested the island away from the Spanish after several wars.

 

More rain coming, this is the ritzy area.  Andru Jones (pro baseball player) built a huge mansion for his mom nearby.  She lived there for three months, but it was very lonely.  So she moved back to her old neighborhood.  The house can now be rented by just about anyone for $7500 a week.  Extra if you want the maids, cooks, etc.  Needless to say, it is empty.

The guide then took us to the beach and an exclusive bunch of motels and restaurants.  Typical.  But true to form in Dutch countries, the sunbathing has tops optional.  I thought I was seeing things at first.  Then I realized I was INDEED seeing things.  Piercings.  I’d heard about these, but of course I’d never actually seen them.   Hmmm, looked rather, umm, oh, never mind.

Sorry guys, no photos. 

We returned to the downtown directly afterwards.  We were a little tired, so we started back.  The rotating bridge was across the river, no ferry.

Stepping on, I noticed the flag was orange.  Orange flag means that there is less than 30 minutes until the bridge will be retracted.  A blue flag means “all clear”.  Since everyone was going on it, we did too.

A photo opportunity on the bridge, the Holland America Amsterdam in the background.   You can’t see our ship, it is behind.  We had a long walk coming up in the hot sun.  Since we were leaving at 11:00pm, we were the last out.  That means we had the farthest dock from the main town.  Oh well.

Suddenly, the alarm horn sounded.  The locals started running.  Us tourists stared after them.  Mistake.

Locals were rushing by us and I realized what was happening.  The man gates were closing!   And the gates continued to close.  Praxy and I bolted for them, but we were too slow.  The last few lucky locals slipped through and then…

We were all stuck between the bridge and the gate.  And unbelievingly, they started the bridge and a gap appeared at our feet.   No time for photos, time to crowd away from the open water towards the gate.  No hand rails.  Nothing.  When I was safe (relatively) I held my camera above my head and photographed the crush.

After about 10 minutes, the gates were opened and we all were allowed to escape.  The locals seemed a little put out, but this evidently isn’t too unusual.  Something like this would never be allowed to happen in most countries.  I suppose someone will have to drown before the protocol is changed. 

Some people had waited on the bridge.  I don’t consider that any big deal as there was plenty of room.  A small tugboat passed through the open water on the far side and the bridge was back in place in 10 minutes.

We decided to check around this side of the river, but there wasn’t much there.  At least within close walking distance.  Since we were hot and tired, we tried to find an interesting restaurant with air conditioning.  Nothing there either.  But there was one last thing that caught my eye.

Crawl in, air it up, zip it closed, and you have the world’s largest hamster in a natural hothouse.   I’ll bet the temperature inside was over 100.  And he could hardly make any headway as the outside was perfectly smooth.  Every now and then, a worker would boost him away from the edge, but the breeze was the main means of propulsion.

It was time to head back to the ship and lunch.  We were pretty wore out, so that is about the end of anything really interesting for that day.  We went to bed early as we had a snorkeling trip planned in Aruba the following morning.

12/20/12  11:00am Atlantic standard time (yep, I finally figured it out while online uploading my blog).  I don’t know when we go back to Eastern time.  Either tonight or tomorrow night.  Update 12/27/12  8:10 PST

Day 16-St. Lucia, West Indies

This was a big day.  Ziplining.

Early, while we were planning, I asked Praxy if she would like to try zip-lining during our cruise.  Surprisingly to me, she said yes.  I thought that she was very daring.  Scared of heights?  Forget this one, then.  Obviously, Praxy wasn’t afraid.

Everyone I talked to said that St. Lucia was the best.  Sounded good to me.

We booked this excursion directly from Holland America.  The price was identical for one reason.  Another was timing.  The Ryndam was scheduled to leave Castries at 2:30pm and our zip-lining trip was scheduled to end at 1 or so.  IF there was a problem, I wanted to be sure that the ship would wait for us.

Again, leave the ship and go through the trinkety BS and jewelry.  Again.  Déjà vu all over again and again and again and…

I wonder…is that what some people do?  Go from port to port, just to buy jewelry?  Just HOW MANY DIAMONDS CAN A PERSON BUY?   How vain can that person be?

Ready to go.  Into a waiting van and we were whisked away.  St. Lucia and St. Johns both had traffic rules similar to Europe.  Everyone drives on the left, driver is seated on the right.  I was getting used to it.  We sat in the back and that made picture taking almost impossible.  But by now, you’ve seen one island’s traffic, you’ve pretty much seen them all.  So I’m jumping ahead to the action!

A 1 hour ride brought us to the tram and zip-line park.

A quick check in, then you get fitted with your harness.  They don’t rush this, everything has got to be right.

A friend named Jeanne gets ready.  She had zip-lined many times before, but this one was something she was really looking forward to.  She asked to go with us for company.  No problem, good to make new friends.

We’re suited up and ready!

On the tram.

Up into the forest.  The tram took us to the 2000 foot level.  Quite a bit cooler than on the ocean.

A short hike, maybe 1/4 mile through the forest and…

You’re there!

Praxy on the far side.  I had to zooom a looong ways with the video camera.  Back at the ship I was forced to choose, still camera or video.  I settled on the video because it would fit in my pocket and the video would be interesting to watch.  The still photography suffered.  Oh well.

This was getting very high, maybe 100 feet off of the ground.  Whoever put these platforms in must have been part monkey.  No video, sorry.  It takes forever to upload on the internet.  I will assemble a video when I get home. 

Look out, Novia.  Here I come!  Not to worry.  They had a good braking system and no one was even close to getting hurt.  The brake rope got tangled a bit and one guy stopped before the platform and slid back down the cable out of reach.  No problem.  You turn around backwards and hand over hand it to the platform.  The cable is rated to 10 tons and there are two of them.  Also there is a safety rope on the harness.  You are hooked in three times.  See the little block of wood on the line?  The guide uses that to slow you down.  The guides don’t need it, they land on the platforms like birds.  Both of them had been working here for 4 years.

Do you think she was having fun?

Waiting our turns, one of our party holds his platform safety line.  A guide would go ahead to catch us.  The other stayed behind and prepared us.  They were very very careful and neither Praxy or I ever felt like there was any danger.

This gigantic tree is very picturesque.  Two weddings have been performed at it’s base.   Then the couples could zip off into their marriage. 

There are two other lines in the park.  One is less expensive as you don’t take the tram.  The other is an adventure line that includes some rappelling, climbing, and strenuous hiking.  Gotta be in good shape to do that one.  We declined.

Back down the hill on the tram.  The return is higher on the towers and you can see much better.

Another lucky photo, a hummingbird.   I couldn’t tell I’d got it on the camera until I got back.  A little blurry from having to blow it up, but what the heck!

Looking down the line.

The Atlantic Ocean.

The Caribbean Sea.  We returned to the ship, exhausted but pleased.  I’d do it again any day.

The ship took off at 2:30 for Souffrierre (spelling) down the coast about 20 miles.  There were three shore excursions that allow people to either boat or take a bus from Castries to that other town that I can’t spell.  (Going through my paperwork, there is not ONE time it is on any paperwork).  100 people took advantage of this, it took two tenderings to get them all back.

Here is that town, it means “sulfur” in French.  What a pretty location.

The Pitons.  These two peaks from an extinct volcano are the most photographed and popular place on the island.

The scenery of St. Lucia is something to behold.  Stunning.  Verdant.  Picturesque.  If I ever visit the Caribbean again, this island will be my target. 

Wow.  I’m caught back up.  Thank goodness for sea days.  Tomorrow we visit Curacao in the Netherland Antilles.  I’ll have a perfect excuse to get behind on my writing.  Planning to upload on the 18th so my readers can enjoy. 

We have a long shore day tomorrow, leaving around 11pm for Aruba.  Got no particular plans for Curacao, but we are going to snorkel a shipwreck in Aruba.  I can hardly wait!

12/17/12  5:00pm