I’ve been really lazy about writing and, truth be told, about everything for the last few days. After the Panama Canal on the 15th we had a sea day on our way to Punta Arenas, Costa Rica. I did the usual sea day stuff – you fall into a routine on sea days – which included listening to some talks on Costa Rica, shipwrecks, and Mayans, playing trivia, and talking with friends about all kinds of things with much of the focus being on where we should go for our next meal. In the evenings we generally get together in the Club for a drink before dinner and after dinner many of my friends go to their cabins. A couple of us go to whatever show is on at 9:30. The entertainment has been pretty good most nights with some better than others. After the show I’m usually the only night owl who goes down to the Club to listen to the live music there and if the songs hit me right, I get up and dance a little. There are generally a few other people there, mostly couples, and it’s not unusual for just the wives to get up and dance. I guess it doesn’t sound like a very exciting day, but I enjoy it and it’s more exciting than my typical days at home. In Williamsburg I don’t have any opportunities to sit and listen to live music, limited chances to see any kind of show, and not even all that many times to sit and just talk to friends about whatever. Here on the ship I’m getting one of the most important, and oftentimes most neglected, things we seniors need and that is socialization. Getting old can sometimes be a very lonely thing.
Moving on, two days ago we arrived in Punta Arenas, Costa Rica. I think this was my fourth visit there and I’ve done tours to the rain forest and butterfly sanctuary, a coffee plantation and the capital of San Jose. So, I stayed on the ship as did most of my friends. We intended to walk into the little town, but it was very long dock with no shade on a very sunny, humid day and we all decided to stay onboard. The town has not much to offer but some little craft shops and a beach. As it turned out in mid-afternoon it poured and if we’d walked into town we would have been drenched.
Yesterday was another sea day and a repeat of what I just wrote about. I did have a very nice dinner last night with our captain and his wife and two other couples. This captain is very engaging and his wife is a lovely lady. Unlike some captains I’ve sailed with, this one has his wife on board with him all the time. He gives the best noon reports of any captain I've had. Most just report the position of the ship, the wind and sea conditions and the depth beneath the keel. This captain tells us information of historical or scientific interest in the seas we’re passing through. At dinner we had interesting conversations about world affairs and how they are affecting cruising and I learned a lot. That’s always something I enjoy.
Today we’re as I indicated in Guatemala. This is a container port and there is zero here except a little town to support the people who work at the port. There are a few tours to a coffee plantation or to the old Spanish colonial city of Antigua. I’ve been there before and despite it being very picturesque I didn’t feel like taking the hour and a half bus ride each way to see it again. So I, with all my friends, stayed on board. It gave me an opportunity to read and answer some emails, take care of a little business, and write a little. We also sat and discussed potential future voyages. We don’t purposely book cruises together, but one of us will mention a cruise we are thinking about and the rest of us might say it sounds interesting and we often wind up sailing some or all of a cruise together. We’re kind of a wandering band of cruise gypsies.
This has been a very rambling and unexciting entry in this, my online version of a journal. I could post a photo of the container ship at the next dock unloading its cargo, but that’s really boring. Instead I found some photos from the blog Katie and I wrote a long time ago (fifteen and a half years!) when we stopped here and went to Antigua. I don’t know which of us took them but they brought back memories of the times we cruised together.
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| This was carpet made of colored sawdust and seeds with fruits and vegetables lined around the edges in a church in Antigua |
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| Palace of the Captain General when Antigua was the capital of the Spanish colony of Guatemala from 1543 t0 1773 |
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| Some little musicians who entertained us on our tour back then. By now they're all grown up and I can't help but wonder where they are. |
1 comment:
Days with friends sound lovely— glad you are enjoying your time together.
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