April 20 -“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”

Jacques Cousteau, the famous oceanographer, said that and evidently I’ve fallen under the sea’s spell.  I leave tomorrow for my next adventure on the Seabourn Ovation.  I booked the cruise while on my last voyage when I realized that I had a birthday coming up.  If you’ve read my blog before you’ll know that last year I had a spectacular birthday including an evening concert in the ruins of Ephesus.  My family will be busy working and in school on that day, so I decided to celebrate on another cruise.  A friend from the Quest will be on the first part of my voyage and I’m meeting a couple of other cruise friends along the way which will make the experience that much better. 

The Seabourn Ovation

I fly to London first and after a night at the hotel I like there, and dinner and breakfast with one of my newly met friends,  I’ll head down to Dover to board the Ovation on Sunday.  My cruise will take me to some places I’ve been before along the French and Spanish coasts before doing a circumnavigation of the British  Isles.  I haven’t seen many places in England and I’ve never been to Scotland, so there will be lots of new things to see.  I haven’t planned a lot (I haven’t really had much time) but I know I’m going to revisit the D Day sites on the coast of Normandy.  I did that with my husband  five years ago and it was one of the most moving days of my life.  My English friend Hilary is meeting me in Liverpool and she has a lovely day planned for us with some really neat (does anyone use that word anymore?) things planned.  I’ll give you a clue – it has something to do with a pretty famous band that came from Liverpool.  More about that later.

Anyway, I finally finished packing, one of my least favorite things to do, and I hope that I did a better job packing than for my last cruise.  Fortunately this time I'm not going literally to the ends of the earth, so if I forgot something I should be able to get it along the way. Ciao for now!