StLouisCruisers

I hope it's nothing too!

Big Bon Voyage wishes to all our Dailyites today boarding their Grand voyages. I know you will all have a GRAND time! Thank you so much! So nice of you to say. I have several more days at South Georgia Island which was a very interesting experience and I think you'll like those too. Thanks Vanessa. I just love my little penguin! I'm sad to hear your sleep hours decreased again last night. Maybe a bit nervous about your Rheumatology appointment. I hope when the repairs begin on the house that it all goes smoothly. Good luck today!

Antarctica January 3, 2017 2nd day En Route to South Georgia Island On January 3, 2017 Seabourn Quest was making its way to South Georgia Island. The weather this day was not as great as the day before. We had to move our clocks forward one hour the night before therefore it was a slow start to our morning as everyone was dragging themselves into Seabourn Square for their morning cup of coffee. It was a unique area where there is the bar area for coffee and snacks, tables and chairs for sitting to read or talk. Computers and iPads were there for passenger use, bookshelves with reading material, boutique shops, future cruise sales desk, and a very unique guest services area. They had four desks in an enclosed area with guest services employees to answer our questions and make arrangements for tours, transfers or dining reservations. There were windows on three sides of Seabourn Square so it was a great place to relax and watch for wildlife off the rear of the ship. A typical view from my sofa in the rear corner. Here was the weather outside. We had met the front we were trying to avoid. First one is taken from the Seabourn video. The view out my balcony. I really didn’t take a lot of photos on Jan. 3. We took our clothing to be inspected mid-day. As I said yesterday regulations said we had to insure that no materials, seed, or contamination was transported between Antarctica and South Georgia Island. Everything we brought to be inspected passed and our names were crossed off the list. Then we went shopping at the boutiques because we had a fair amount of on-board credit and weren’t spending it on the usual specialty dinners, shore excursions or alcohol. Not even laundry because Seabourn Quest had 2 free laundry rooms. The jewelry store had the most adorable diamond penguin pendants with a floating diamond in the middle of his tummy. Because the floating diamond moves it caught the light and sparkled like crazy. Perfect choice! They had some with black and white diamonds, too. The necklaces were very popular and they sold several of each type. Here is what mine looks like. Here is a photo of a penguin display outside a boutique on the ship. A friend's husband sent me the photo so sorry if it’s somewhat fuzzy. All the ladies were stitching and knitting so the husbands roamed the ship finding interesting things like this. We were in a bird strike area and all windows had to be kept covered at night and lights were dimmed or off on the outside of the ship. Even the huge glass atrium with a ceiling of glass had special covers. Otherwise we confused the migrating birds and they landed on the ship and some can’t take off again. You had to call the Expedition Team if you spotted a bird on your balcony so they could handle it. No birds there at that point, but they had seen hundreds land on the ship at one time. This is a photo of Luciano from our Expedition Team who found a bird a week or so earlier and was showing it to nearby passengers before letting it go free. The afternoon of Jan. 3rd I went to the Observation Bar which is located at the front of the ship and up high. It’s like the Crow’s Nest – lots of windows and seating, a bar for beverages, and it even has a door on both port and starboard to step out onto the viewing deck right in front of the windows. While there that afternoon it began to snow. This was a treat because we hadn’t seen snow falling this cruise. This was what a typical knitters and stitchers get together looked like. You could have a Bailey’s Irish cream, wine, a cocktail or a glass of champagne whenever you liked. With me are our bar staffer Serena (from Australia), Melinda and Joan. We checked the dinner menu and decided to pass on the dining room that night. We ordered from the room service menu instead. When it was delivered he laid our table with a tablecloth, set out the condiments and poured our soups from little covered jugs which kept it warm. We also had Caesar salad with grilled chicken, club sandwich with fries and cole slaw. For dessert the delicious cookies we always enjoyed. With a ‘fridge full of beverages we were all set. So cozy especially with the drapes pulled to keep the light from shining out...(remember the birds!) Tomorrow we will see how our first day in South Georgia Island played out especially with the current weather conditions

Good morning friends! I can report today that it's only 28 degrees here, and cloudy. The high will only be 47 today and there is rain in the forecast for this afternoon or evening. Thanks to Jacqui @kazu for posting Rich's @richwmn Fleet Report and Daily. Thank you also to Roy @rafinmd for the maps of the ship locations.🚢 Festival of Sleep sounds like a good day to me. Wow, there sure are plenty of days in history to celebrate on January 3rd. Hurray for the "Steves" and General George Washington's army! I think I'll skip the goulash, Zombie Blood, and Vandal Gonzo Resistance. Sheesh! Have fun reporting on those topics Debbie/Tina @dfish and @0106, Dixie @summer slope and Ann @cat shepard. And thank you! Prayers offered up earlier this morning for our group here on the Care list, my DB and DGD, friends Scott and Bob, the people of Israel and Ukraine, the hostages still held so many months, and the troops being shot at every day with rockets and drones. Praying they all stay safe! 🙏 Three cheers for the Celebration list! Hoping those celebrating things such as anniversaries and birthdays, and setting sail today have a wonderful time. So many here going on the GW voyage and Grand Australia voyage! Thanks to Vanessa @JazzyV for maintaining the lists for us.❤️ Port today is Richards Bay, South Africa. That was the port twice before on May 4, 2021 and January 20, 2022. I have not been there before after repeated attempts the past few years but those bookings never held. Here are the links for your convenience in retrieving your photos. As I mentioned once before I've been spending my spare time working on my Christmas stocking project. It literally takes hours a day to make any progress so I don't spend as much time here as I used to. I hope you know I read all the posts but don't always get a chance to respond, and I care about all the goings on and health updates in your lives. Thank you again Vanessa @JazzyV for your concise reports on us all to help us stay up to date. Hope you all have a great day! Stay safe and well!

Thanks for the bouquet for her Graham! Thank you! Doesn't he look dashing in all those gold stripes and formal dinner wear? It's like Central Casting sent over a ship captain.😆 Hope all your travels to the ship are on time and uneventful. Try to stay in touch during your absence from the Daily and let us know how things are going. Bon Voyage!

Continuing my travelogue from Antarctica Jan. 2, 2017 En Route to South Georgia Island I will continue with the Seabourn Quest Antarctica cruise we were on 7 years ago. On Jan. 2, 2017 we were on our way from Antarctica to South Georgia Island. Very early in the morning on Jan. 2 the ship passed by Elephant Island which is where Sir Ernest Shackleton set sail in 1916 in a tiny boat with a couple of his crew members to try to get help to rescue his crew from the doomed Endurance. The approximate time we would pass the island was announced the night before so DH got up at 3:30 and joined an Expedition Team member and some of the other passengers to get a firsthand look at it. The following photos were taken from 3:54 to 4:22 am and of course it was light out. It looks like quite the inhospitable location to hunker down for the next few months. We were setting off on the same journey that Shackleton did - Elephant Island to South Georgia Island. I can't imagine trying it in a tiny boat like he did. We will see a replica of that small boat, the James Caird, at the museum in Grytviken. We were trying to outrun some storms heading our way and on Jan. 2 it wasn't that bad outside. That would change before long though as the lows caught up with us. In the meantime Jan. 2 was spent attending lectures. With very little else to show you on Jan. 2, I decided to show you what a standard balcony suite on Seabourn Quest looks like. They are extremely comfortable with a seating area, a table and two tub chairs, a bar area, a walk in closet, and a luxurious bath made completely of marble with double sinks, a full tub, a shower and lots of storage. My only quibble was the sofa was rather hard. A little softness would have been appreciated. The bed is ready for luggage to arrive. Last year on Princess we noted they no longer provided us with the vinyl luggage protectors to place on the duvet, which I think is a big mistake. We used pool towels to protect the duvet instead on Princess. The shower including glass door is hidden on the right hand side of the photo. There are two sinks and a full size marble lined bathtub. They even had this small built in console table with drawer, mirror and small bench seat located in the "foyer" that you could use as a makeup vanity. Our stewardess's name was Michelle. All the room stewards were female on Seabourn and they did an outstanding job. If you finished a bottle of champagne or wine from your 'fridge you wouldn't even have to ask for a replacement - she would see the bottle in the wastebasket and replace it immediately. The service on Seabourn was outstanding! We have only sailed on Seabourn twice, both times on Quest, and would love to sail them more often. Perhaps if we win the lottery. Here you see the name of the Captain whose name cannot be mentioned for fear of CC censorship. I know this from past experience! As a little treat for those who know him I am going to share a photo taken earlier in the Antarctica cruise of a dinner we attended one evening. Captain D.D. spoke to us in the hallways during the "meet your neighbor" party. He knew us from our summer of 2016 Norway spectacular cruise on the Prinsendam as I like to call it. Our Captain on the Quest sometimes subbed on the Prinsendam during Captain vacation time. He truly loved the Prinsendam! We had talked about him being on the Quest for our Christmas-New Year's cruise and he said he would see us there! Anyway, when he met up with us in the hallway, I told him I had a photo book that I had made of that spectacular cruise and would he like to sign it? After all, he played a big part in all the unique features of that cruise and was mentioned heavily in the book. He said of course! Meet me and another couple I met from Norway in the bar at 6:45 for a drink and then we will all five go to dinner. Sounded good to us! We met in the bar later and chatted while he signed the cover page of my book, then headed to the dining room for dinner. The couple from Norway was so nice and they were excited to hear about the spectacular Norway cruise we had all enjoyed so much. To commemorate our dinner our waiter took our photo. We actually ran into this couple on a Holland America tender boat a few years ago. She recognized us and we had a nice little chat After leaving Antarctica, they thoroughly examine anything you plan to wear on shore in South Georgia Island so that you don't introduce any foreign matter, like seeds, to their environment from Antarctica. Any speck has to be removed. They even check the boots which are kept outside in a covered environment in metal cages with your cabin number on it. Sort of like a dog crate. Those are power washed off for us a couple times during the cruise. Most of us had rented the boots from a company that does that sort of thing for Antarctica cruises. So you take your parkas, scarfs, hats, gloves, waterproof pants, everything and they examine them. Technically they even have to examine any backpacks or camera cases, too. Then your name is checked off a list. There are very strict rules from the ITTAO.

We arrived in Casablanca, Morocco for the first and so far only time, on April 4, 2018. It was on the Prinsendam on the Grand Mediterranean and Africa cruise. The cruise line provided a shuttle to downtown because it was quite a long way from the ship to the gates of the port. Then it was even further to the downtown square where they dropped everyone off. And look at all this traffic! Here we are at the drop-off spot, from which everyone scattered to do their own thing. We had decided to walk first to the Place Jamaa Souk and then on to the famous Hassan II mosque. Exterior of souk. Continuing on without a purchase, we took a left turn (thank goodness for the map!), and soon saw this place – the Ecole Royale Navale. I didn’t know what it was at the time but research says it’s a university or learning institution. After a 55 minute hike from the bus drop off, we arrived at the Hassan II mosque, largest in Africa and 7th largest in the world. Honestly, it looked closer on the map! Look at the size of this plaza. It’s enormous! Such beautiful architecture In the distance you could see the El Hank Lighthouse With a last look at this fountain, which I would like to have jumped into at this point, we turned around and started back to the pick-up point. Tours of the mosque are available if you wish. We did not want to spend more time there though I’m sure it was spectacular inside. Along the way to the bus stop we saw one of the buses headed back to the ship and the driver picked up cruisers like us at stop lights. You just had to flag him down and show your cruise card. Besides we probably looked like tourists and stuck out in the crowd. Catching the bus before we arrived at the drop off/pick up spot cut off a lot of walking. When we returned to the Prinsendam we were quite ready for food and drink, and a long rest!

Good morning friends! It's another chilly 28 degree morning but will be sunny and 51 for a high. It's a great day to be a Michigan fan! I don't usually watch football but turned the station just in time to see Blake Corum forge his way into the end zone in overtime to make the score 27-20. DS and family were in a Cozumel sports bar catching the game on their TV's. Now on to play Washington next week! 🏈 Another exciting fact for Michiganders is one of you bought the only winning Powerball lottery ticket! You're on a roll! Thank you Jacqui @kazu for the Fleet Report and Daily and Roy @rafinmd for the maps. And thank you Rich @richwmn for getting it all going for us. Today is an interesting day for cats and their humans, Mew Year. 🐈 And how about buffet day? I only go to buffets on cruise ships. National Motivation Day sounds like a good way to start the year. Rodney Dangerfield was a very funny man and he didn't disappoint with today's quote. I'm sure the chicken divan, cherry blossom-tini and Viognier are great but I usually do my own thing and it won't be any of those. An interesting tidbit about the day in history concerning Mahatma Gandhi. Thanks to food and beverage ladies Debbie/Tina @dfish and @0106, Dixie @summer slope, and Ann @cat shepard for reporting today. Prayers said today for our Care list individuals especially Vanessa @JazzyV, my DB and DGD, the people of Israel and Ukraine, the hostages held and US troops under attack on ships and bases in the region. 🙏 Cheers to Sam, Carol @mamaofami's DH on his birthday today, and happy anniversary to Maureen @RMLincoln and Richard. 🥂 Congrats to all those celebrating today including my DDIL on her 50th birthday, and those with anniversaries and birthdays of their own. 🎂🎉 A salute to everyone cruising and the huge crowd of Dailyites heading to their ships! Thank you Vanessa @JazzyV for your list keeping each day. The port of the day is Casablanca, Morocco which was only posted here once before on Sept. 12, 2023. DH and I have been there once before in 2018 on the Prinsendam. Here is the link: Have a great day today everyone! Stay safe and well!

Nancy our Wolverines won in overtime! I'm hoping you saw the ending. Enjoy your day relaxing tomorrow.

She would be so proud! Beautiful work. I love florals. Awesome! Safe travels!

Yes, GO BLUE! Two great teams but I gotta go with my heart.❤️

Happy early birthday wishes to Sam! So nice to have the family come by to celebrate too.🎂 I hope you, Caron and Susan are having a great time today. You must all be so excited!! Happy early anniversary wishes to you and DH! Hope there are many more to come! Karen, thank you for your comments on DD's tree. I'm taking a few minutes from preparing the threads by placing on bobbin cards for future use. Earlier I ironed the aida cloth, taped the edges to prevent raveling and placed it in the scroll frame that holds the fabric taut. There is a pin marking the center so I can begin working there. Also, the legend has so many icons that they often use colors like blue, green and red in addition to black to take care of the different types of stitches, different amounts of threads used, and of course so many colors to choose from. You really have to be on the ball every time you change thread colors to remember half stitch, cross stitch, etc.?? The baby samplers are nice to do. I've made several of those and for both of a friend's babies. Love the nursery themes with all the baby's statistics! I hope you can get motivated to get back to work on your last project. Carolyn, have a wonderful cruise, and safe travels to San Diego tomorrow. I told DD you think this tree is your favorite and she was so pleased. Thank you so much for saying that. Got it!! The second half was hard but the old brain finally figured it out! Thanks for that meme! I'm glad you liked the photos today. I've enjoyed yours and all the others of Osaka too. (Tony, Brenda, ? Hope I haven't forgotten some!) I thought today's history facts were pretty good ones, too. Every day there's something going on somewhere that can change the world. Vanessa, I hope you and BFF are enjoying your New Year's Day celebration and dinner. Impressive you made it up until after midnight! DD appreciates everyone's comments and I've made sure to tell her. The birthday girl is actually DDIL. She will be 50 tomorrow but runs and works out and I've never seen her in better shape! So happy you've enjoyed the travelogue. There are several more days left as we shift to South Georgia Island, which was great too. Thank you! The Emancipation Proclamation was major and I'm glad to help celebrate it. Happy New Year to you Father! Always good to see you posting here.😇 Great photos of your New Year's Eve. Love the singer's beautiful gown! It sounds like you had quite a special celebration. I love to wear my Prinsendam stuff, like my sweatshirt, and T shirt. Wish I had a pin! Gerry, that is pretty bad service for a post office. I sent my Christmas cards out on Dec. 4 and DS said his arrived Dec. 26! My poor twin is still waiting and says she has hopes it will still arrive, well into 2024. DD has large clear plastic tubs with each season or theme and a basement storage room to place them on shelves. Hope you are having an excellent afternoon as well. I'd better get back to the stocking preparation work. It takes a lot of time keeping up with our Dailyites. I don't know how Vanessa manages it all! She must have a legal pad to keep notes each day!

Wow, and we thought our post offices were slow here! That's a long time to wait for a postcard even during the height of Covid! Glad to hear I captured some photos of the Zaandam while you were on it (with Boris Federer). LOL! Interesting the Polar Plunge was in the actual sea! It's a long way back up to the hot tub from that aft platform, which is what I assume they used. I know you must have enjoyed the Quest as much as we have. Thanks for the comments. Thanks for offering to help out with the maps for Jacqui. I agree she has plenty to do already! You're welcome Melanie! DD keeps life interesting. She will be glad to hear you enjoyed it. Happy New Year to you, your DH and Bertie Woofster!🎉 Thank you Jacqui. I'm hoping the decorations last for decades, and they might since Sadie and Milo aren't allowed in the front rooms. DD has two little gates to keep them out. Whenever they have been allowed in for a while, they've always left the tree alone totally. Good girl! Good boy! Thanks for your comments Debbie. I'm sorry to hear you still have the cold, and your DH is getting it too. Nice of you to protect the relatives with a mask on and outdoors, too. Get well soon. Thank you for your mention of DD's Candyland tree. I'm so glad it made you smile, always a good thing!

Happy anniversary @Cat in my lap Natalie and DH! I hope you have many more to come! While I was visiting DD she decided to switch out the Christmas Celebration tree in her foyer for a new and different theme this January. I was actually able to help decorate it and boy it was harder to do than I thought. Each decoration was carefully thought out and placed in exactly the right spot. The theme was "Candyland". By the time we added the "candies" and got to the baked goods I decided we should call it "Sweetie Time". We had a jovial waiter once who always presented the dessert menu calling out Sweetie Time!! So here you go. Cupcakes and "lollipops"... Macaroons, gum drops... even colored icing doughnuts like this blue one. I think this tree will chase away the winter doldrums!

We headed back to the Quest ready to enjoy the remainder of our New Year's Day. Shortly thereafter we noticed the Zaandam far off in the distance. At about 5 pm we were told to come out to the pool deck to see the Polar Plunge event. Hopefully the pool water was good and cold, especially after we'd thrown the ice blocks in it two days earlier. I went out to watch from the deck above, all bundled up and for good measure a lap blanket wrapped around my lower half. Meanwhile our brave Captain was the first one out there to take a flying leap into the pool. He has that thick Nordic blood you know… Yep, there he went! Everyone else crept out in their thick robes, tossed them off and jumped in with him. Meanwhile I was shivering outside because I didn't have my parka on, only my puffy coat. Thank goodness the sun had come out this afternoon though. There is our Captain egging on the participants to stay in a little longer. While he is standing there soaking wet with temperatures in the 30's. The wonderful staff brought out some warm mulled wine which hopefully helped to warm up these frozen individuals. Most of them hopped into the hot tubs to thaw themselves out, but not the Captain. He simply donned his robe and chatted with onlookers. He was probably still barefoot too! The weather looked fine here but we were told there was a low coming and we would be leaving Antarctica to try to get to South Georgia Island ahead of it. Farewell Antarctica!

Travelogue continues for Antarctica Jan. 1, 2017 Half Moon Island Let us continue with the Antarctica cruise of 2016-2017 on Seabourn Quest. After partying till after midnight with our fellow passengers, we awoke to a somewhat cloudy but relatively warm day at a place called Half Moon Island. There is a tiny Argentinian base located on this crescent-shaped island, but it is only manned in summer. Once we arrived by Zodiac, we walked around enjoying the exercise. Here is a shot of the base. But the actual first thing we saw when we stepped ashore was this rotting boat. Who knows how long it had been there. I love the penguin casually walking by. For some reason I love the next photo. And you can see the Quest hiding in the background. Upon further exploration we spied this whale bone. One of the Expedition Team was nearby to answer questions and they were of the opinion it was from a blue whale and had probably been there at least 100 years. But of the most interest to us were the rocky hills covered with chinstrap penguin nests. Here's a close up of a chinstrap and her two chicks sitting at her feet. This one looks like he's on stage. And these two look like they're slipping down a slide. I've said this before, but don't they look like a London Bobbie? Feeding the chicks. Taken from the official video of the cruise. Half Moon Island is known as a birding area because of the variety of birds who nest there. Unfortunately for the penguins there are a lot of skuas, but we also saw some Kelp gulls and even some with babies in their nest like this one. There are three little ones there if you look closely. Well that is all for the Island. In my next post I'll show the brave people who took the Polar Plunge.

Rabbit, Rabbit, White Rabbit! Good morning friends and Happy 2024! I went to bed at 10:30 last night (DH was already fast asleep there) and didn't hear any of the fireworks I thought I'd hear. I got a pretty good night's sleep I'd say. A good beginning to the new year. Since yesterday's tree light issues kept me from getting anywhere on my cross stitch work, I'd better work doubly hard today. Meanwhile, let me thank Jacqui @kazu for posting the Fleet Report and Daily this morning. I hope you and Ivan had a great time last night celebrating! The weather here today is pretty typical. Fair and 38F. The high will be about 52 and mostly sunny today. Hope it's nice weather where you are. January 1st is Ellis Island Day, Euro Day and First Foot Day. Good for Ellis Island and the Euro, but I had to look up First Foot Day. In order to be the one to first step foot into your home on January 1st (according to the Scottish and North Englanders) you had to be outside when the clock strikes midnight, then be the first to step foot inside. It's supposed to bring good luck but I think I'll stick with saying rabbit, rabbit, white rabbit! I'm not sure I can agree with the quote because we all need sleep to function. Roasted sweet potatoes sounds like an accompaniment not the entire meal. Wow on that cocktail name! And I might try the wine since it says it's a white. If there are no days in history mentioned how about these? in 45 BC The Julian calendar takes effect for the first time, by edict of Roman consul Julius Caesar. And in 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by Abraham Lincoln to free slaves in US confederate states. Those both sound pretty important to me! Thank you Debbie/Tina @dfish, @0106 , Dixie @summer slope and Ann @cat shepard for the food and beverage reports for today. Prayers for the Care list and all here suffering and in pain. May you or your family member in need of prayers be on the way to recovery. Praying every day for my DB, friends Scott and Bob, the people of Israel and Ukraine and the hostages held. Praying our troops in the region stay safe. And may all of you sailing or preparing to sail soon have wonderful cruises! Cheers to those celebrating birthdays and anniversaries! Thank you Vanessa @JazzyV for preparing the Care and Celebration lists every day. You are doing a fabulous job even through all your pain. Praying for a good resolution to your health issues so you can get back to enjoying life! The port of the day is Osaka, Japan. This is the fourth time we've seen it as our destination. May 24, 2021, February 1, 2022 and March 17, 2023. I haven't been to that Japanese port. Here are the links for your convenience. DS, DDIL and the boys are in Cozumel having their annual warm weather trip over New Year's to celebrate her birthday tomorrow. They mentioned some of the ships in port when they arrived. I told them to expect 5 ships there today and 7 tomorrow! Can you imagine how many cruisers will be there at one time? Hope they have someplace to go to enjoy a little peace and relaxation. I hope everyone here has a wonderful day and to go even further a healthy, happy new year!

I'm glad you enjoyed the photos of Fanning Island today, and hope you have no problems reaching their shores on your cruise. And I wanted to mention I have taken my projects on many cruises and often stitch with other crafters on the longer voyages. I meet a lot of nice people that way. Thank you for that beautiful and timely ecard. We appreciate it, and your friendship here on the Daily! I've put that book on hold at my library for my Kindle. It should be in my hands within two weeks. Thanks for the suggestion! I had the Alex Cross Must Die book request at our library, but when it came they still didn't have a Kindle version out. I know there IS a Kindle version and can't figure out why they don't offer it yet. I'll keep an eye on it and request it again when they do decide to purchase the Kindle version. It's for DH. You're welcome Graham. I'm glad you enjoyed them. Thanks once again, Graham! I know we all enjoy showing them to others who are interested in seeing new places. I hadn't heard a peep here until I read your post, then removed my earbuds (listening to a Hallmark Christmas movie), and began to hear some firecrackers. The fireworks usually start around 9 pm here. Good luck getting through this night! Happy new year to you, Pauline and Sarah! You all deserve the best 2024! This morning after I posted about going out for Christmas lights for my poor tree, we decided to head out and get it done. I bought 4 more boxes (I had one unused box of lights), so 500 total mini lights (colored, not white). We came home and had lunch and then I started removing the ornaments so I could put new lights on. Still had the top half of the 4.5 foot tree lit. What an ordeal! My back was aching afterwards. Then I started adding the ornaments back since we store the tree fully decorated and put in a closet under the stairs. All of a sudden the lights on the back side of the top of the tree were out too! I was cursing under my breath! I had no lights left and had to then rearrange some of the ones already placed to cover that area. With my luck the front, top of the tree will go out tonight!! What are the chances they would all go out at nearly the same time?? DH says we should have just bought a new tree! Pre-lit of course! Hoping for better luck in 2024!

I've had to prove I'm human three times today. First post, the Antarctica travelogue posts, and the post I just made. I'm sick of it! DH says it's AI tracking us. 🤬

The lights on our pre-lit Christmas tree are finally giving up the ghost and as of last night the lower half lights are all dead! We should run to the store to get some replacement lights before they run out, but like Annie @marshhawk, I'd really rather stay home. I'd rather not wait until next year to replace the lights. Besides they're half price right now! And I may or may not be home next December anyway depending on whether we cancel our 42 day Mediterranean and passage cruise which no longer stops in Israel. I haven't found a good replacement yet. Meantime, I've opened the stocking kit and have quite a lot of work to do to get started. All that thread has to be sorted and wound onto floss bobbins marked with their number. Then the center of the cream color aida cloth has to be marked and that's where the first stitch goes. Looks insurmountable but I have to remember step by step, one day at a time. The center of the pattern is actually on the face of the cow/calf. Make a mistake on that and you're cooked!

Back on the ship it was time for lunch so we went to the Patio Grill for some delicious burgers under the heat lamps. Looks like someone ordered a Bloody Mary, too! The macadamia nut white chocolate chip cookie and chocolate chip cookie were probably mine! A pod of Orca whales was spotted off the ship and many of us were able to get good photos of them. The rest of us have to be content with the videographer's images as contained in the Seabourn video. Here's the best photo I took of them that day. I was in the middle of drying my hair before our nightly meeting and dinner. Next I have another photo taken by Boris Federer the passenger on the Zaandam at this same time. He saw the Quest off in the distance again on Dec. 31 and took this fine photo of us, then later shared it with me. He must have some very good lenses! We sort of blend right in with all the snow. My photos of the scenery that late afternoon. Before dinner we had our nightly meeting by the expedition staff who explained what the plans were for the following day. They were fantastic! Our place setting at dinner included this scroll with our menu on it. According to my cruise diary the menu was a caviar appetizer, lobster consomme', sauteed escalope of foie gras, passion fruit sorbet as a palate cleanser, then either filet mignon or Chilean salmon followed by Chocolate Piano for dessert. Our dessert Dinner was followed by a comedian in the theater and a dance party until midnight with champagne toasts. Happy New Year!!

Travelogue continues on Antarctica Dec. 31, 2016 - Chilean Naval Base On Dec. 31, 2016 we first stopped at Seabourn Square so the staff could stamp our passports with the stamp of the Gonzalez Videla naval base. It includes a penguin on the stamp. It was another beautiful sunny day in Antarctica. The weather so far this trip was outstanding. The next photo shows one of the two aft storage areas for Zodiacs. They use the small crane on each side to left them in and out of the water. And they stack one on top the other, so this one must be a spare. We were on our way down to board a Zodiac at the time so this one wasn't in use that day. Our Zodiac arriving at the Chilean base. The "tourist" spot we all had to stop at. There is a rough cement walkway from the water to the buildings to try to keep your boots clean, but with all the penguins who roost here there is a lot of muck around including on that sidewalk. You have to forgive the penguins because they don't know any better. A view of what I call "lawn ornaments". You can see the Quest back there beside the huge chunk of snow and ice. We all brought our Chilean pesos and US dollars to spend at probably the only place to shop in Antarctica - the base gift shop! It was quite small but they packed as much in as they could. I bought one of the T-shirts with different variety penguins listed on the front with little drawings of them. So cute! More goodies. Here is the guest book you could sign. One of the first penguins we saw here at Waterboat Point which is the actual name of this area, was this very rare leucistic, or blonde, penguin. We were told she came here every year to nest. I suppose that is her mate peeking out from behind her. Here's one sitting on her egg and grooming her feathers at the same time. A multi-tasker. But the way this penguin was siting wasn't very safe because you can see the egg in front of her. I hope it wasn't stolen out from under her. There was a lot of squawking going on that day as they tried to keep their eggs safe from predatory birds like skuas. Moving on, this was the residence for the naval officers stationed here. On top you see the watch tower which had a very, very steep ladder which was barely wide enough to go up. This is the view from the watch tower of Waterboat Point and the Gonzalez Videla Base. You can see we were good at following directions to stay on the sidewalk. The gift shop was on the left. In the residence we saw the kitchen, dining area and living room which was decorated with a Christmas tree. Bedroom doors were kept closed for privacy. It was very kind of them to let us come visit them and invade their space like that. But I imagine without visitors things would get a little dull at times. I can't imagine where they would find a real tree in Antarctica so this must be a well used artificial tree. From the Seabourn video, here is Alex who is a marine ecologist and official penguin counter trying to get an official count of nests this visit. Returning to the ship DH and I enjoyed the nice day in Antarctica. You can see my cruise keycard in my white armband. It makes it very easy to check out and in when going to shore with all our gear on. That's all for our visit to Waterboat Point, but I will be back with some ship activities on New Year's Eve.

Here is someone's home on Fanning Island. Up off the ground and hopefully the roof didn't let rain in. I don't know if you can tell but by this point it was showering so we stepped under an overhang at a building along the road. Five or ten minutes later the rain stopped. How do you like the fence they made? Pretty neat! This is the sign pointing the direction to the school we visited and that I posted about before. It was named after the cruise line that helped fund it years before. This is what the road looks like. Already dried up from the rain. Some passengers paid for a ride around the island to view it instead of walking. A boat left near the shore. If someone here knows what this area is for I'd like to know. No one was there to ask. We ended up seeing a group of small children ready to sing and dance for passersby. Donation bucket there for you to help out. Love the grass skirts! A stop to look at the handmade items. Bring lots of dollar bills when you stop at Fanning Island! Getting ready to leave, this is the view next to the dock. And this is a cool place to wait near the dock. That looks like Kainoa sitting there. Goodbye Ladies! Please excuse the dirty windows on the tender which made my pictures turn out less than stellar. This is the view as our tender headed back to the Maasdam. That was the Maasdam above right waiting for our arrival back. It was a very nice visit to this remote island and well worth the long tender ride. I hope many of you can stop there sometime on your South Pacific cruise.

We were blessed with decent weather for our stop at Fanning Island on the Maasdam on April 6, 2017. A large number of passengers had collected items to donate to the citizens of the little island. I personally brought about 3 dozen ziploc bags with small toothpaste tubes, a toothbrush and dental floss, which we turned over to a classroom of students at the school. Others collected school supplies to give to the kids. Upon arrival at the dock, we were met with many locals singing for us. Some people were dressed in native costumes so that we could have our photos taken with them. Donations always accepted with a smile. Locally made goods were laid out on tables and offered to us at a good price. Here we are at the school I think the kids enjoyed visitors once in a while to break up their lessons. This roomful began singing a song for us. It was great! I'll post this now and come back with more photos of the locality and people we saw along the way.

Yes I did. I don't like having to click on something to prove who I am. Could we get a virus that way??