South America Continued

Monday, January 10, 2010


Now aboard, today was much less frantic… I got up with the sun… Tina didn’t… I went up to the Lido, had a croissant and coffee and read… I didn’t see any of my fellow travelers… Tina got up after 10:00, showered, and we walked off the ship… Having toured the day before there wasn’t a specific destination we needed to visit…

The local jewelry maker offered a shuttle to their shop at Ipanema… It worked for us. We toured the shop… where they were cutting gems and making settings… Tina ended up with an unexpected pre-anniversary gift, an amethyst ring… After shopping we walked the two blocks to the beach… The Brazilians, both men and women do wear somewhat abbreviated swim wear… The beach was unexpectedly dirty… but beautiful, we took pictures… then back via the jewelry store shuttle.

We ended up finding the sisters and Sig (and Toby) had lunch, then turned out for the mandatory life boat drill… Holland has simplified the drill… you no longer have to bring your personal floatation device…

Following the drill we stopped by the cabin to grab the camera, then went upstairs for the sail away… we took photos of the City as we sailed, we took photos of Christ the Redeemer from the harbor, we took photos of the Brazilian Navy (they have an aircraft carrier!) we took pictured of Sugar Loaf from the sea, we took pictures of the colonial sea coast forts, we took pictures of the beaches, we took pictured of the square rigged ship entering the harbor, and we took photos of a submarine that followed us out… suffice it to say we took too many damn pictures…

Having taken pictures we retreated out of the wind to the Crow’s Nest (a bar at the bow of the ship) where we had Pisco sours (yes, we know Pisco Sours are Peruvian, and this isn’t Peru, but they are both in South America and that worked for us... strangely, the ship is using Machu Pichu for a background on some photos... they seem to be similarly geographically challenged) courtesy of our travel agent (Laure of Skyscraper tours, a really good cruise travel agent) who had “drink cards” in our state room when we arrived…

Having drank and talked we retreated to our rooms… I took a nap (I never nap) Tina watch TV aimlessly (she never watches TV aimlessly) and with that the trip became a vacation as well… Its now after 7:00 local time… we have both showered and dressed for dinner (at 8:00) and I am sitting on the balcony blogging and editing the too many pictures… I will try to post some of the pictures this evening.

The seas are calm, the weather a bit cooler. There are light clouds, the sun is setting… By my calculations we are now 20 miles off the coast, 50 miles south of Rio… Our speed is 18 knots, our heading south, south-east.

Now about 11:00, pm… we have dinned, we have seen the show… Tina is preparing for bed, I will take my chances with the satellite internet… with luck I will get this and some photos posted…

Fair winds and trailing seas...