The Daily for Sunday Jan 31, 2021

[rafinmd]

January 31 was a sea day on my 2019 Prinsendam Grand South America and Antarctica voyage was a sea day but with a lot of scenic cruising.  We started the day passing through the Beagle Channel and ended at Cape Horn.  The best glacier viewing was in the 7:30 to 9AM time frame despite rather damp weather.  One waterfall stood out because it was reflected in the clear waters of the Beagle Channel:

 

 

At one point there were 2 glaciers barely a ship length apart:

About 9AM we passed the last of the glaciers and it started to rain, so I headed inside for a while.  About 9:45 some buildings marked the boarder between Argentina and Chile:

 

Current SOLAS regulations call for muster drills every 30 days and ours was oriented to our Antarctic Adventure.  There have been debates between mustering under the lifeboats and indoor locations.  I do not want to be standing under the lifeboats in 70knot winds and 5-meter seas, and this was taken into account considering our coming Drake Passage crossings.  Each boat was assigned an indoor muster, including 3 separate sections of the big dining room.  My station was the Ocean Bar,  They also demonstrated a "thermal protection device" essentially a huge set of coveralls that would fit over a life jacket.

 

 

We reached Cape Horn about 9:

 

 

There was a Chilean naval station at the summit:

 

It  was a Gala night in honor of Princess Beatrix' birthday.  When I returned to the room we had hit the jackpot on pillow gifts appropriate to our continuing to Antarctica:

 

 

Roy

[doobieb]

3 minutes ago, mamaofami said:

My grandson is safely at University of Rochester and his mom is driving back in the snow. Three hours away.

 

The other grandson just landed in LA and is on his way to reclaiming his car tomorrow.

 

And my friend in hospice continues to hang on even though they originally gave her a few days to live. She loves life and isn’t giving up easily.

Prayers for your friend. Hospice is the best for comfort and care. Wish I had the personal strength to be a Hospice volunteer.

[doobieb]

8 minutes ago, 65 Gator said:

I had to laugh out loud while reading this.  I, too, have retired three times and everytime I visit I am asked, over and over, if I am BACK AGAIN...  

hahaha🤪 Bet you kept them guessing!

[dfish]

The painting is done!   I'll let it dry overnight and reload the room tomorrow.   One more night in the guest room.  YEAH!!!!

[cat shepard]

30 minutes ago, dfish said:

The painting is done!   I'll let it dry overnight and reload the room tomorrow.   One more night in the guest room.  YEAH!!!!

Congrats Debbie!🎉

[rafinmd]

I got a call today from my original vaccination site.  The clinic I had been counting on for tomorrow has been cancelled.

 

Roy

[Quartzsite Cruiser]

37 minutes ago, dfish said:

The painting is done!   I'll let it dry overnight and reload the room tomorrow.   One more night in the guest room.  YEAH!!!!

Good news.  Know your glad to get it done,  A girl can only take so much fun at one time. 😁 

 

Lenda

[Quartzsite Cruiser]

DH just checked the Arizona Department of Health Services web site to see if we could move our scheduled second dose to a more convenient time.  We now have appointments at 12:36 pm on February 18.  This is the earliest day we could get one since with the Pfizer vaccine you need 21 full days between jabs.  Now, we should be out of Phoenix before rush hour, and we will be home before dark.

 

When we scheduled the first appointment, the web-site was slow and very difficult to use.  To day, it was extremely easy, and we had no problem reschooling the appointments in just a few minutes..  The web-site must have been upgraded. 

 

@rafinmd It looks like you were very lucky to get your shot yesterday.

 

Lenda

[bobpatj]

Last year on January 31st, the first segment of our 30 day Asia cruise was coming to an end in Hong Kong.  We had wonderful tours and experiences in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.  We got an extra day in Halong Bay, Vietnam as Hong Kong was closing down most everything, due to the riots and a new virus that we haven’t encountered anywhere else.  We had made no plans to tour Hong Kong, so will stay onboard, as passengers come and go.

[ger_77]

16 minutes ago, rafinmd said:

I got a call today from my original vaccination site.  The clinic I had been counting on for tomorrow has been cancelled.

 

Roy

Wow, I'm glad you were able to get in to another site ahead of your original one; timing is everything!

 

Smooth Sailing!

Gerry

[AV8rix]

7 hours ago, cruisemom42 said:

dooG gninroM enoyrevE!  (That's about as much backwards as I can take...)

 

I'd like to start by thanking whoever it was that mentioned Jigzone earlier this week on puzzle day. I checked it out and am enjoying it!  Bonus:  no missing pieces or pieces ending up on the floor.

 

 

And I use this one too:  https://thejigsawpuzzles.com/

[rafinmd]

The church where I worship is jointly affiliated with the Methodist and Presbyterian denominations.  We have been meeting by Zoom since late March.  Today was our annual meeting and both of our denominational leaders were present.  Everyone agreed that if these were usual times the services today would have been cancelled due to the weather.

 

Roy

[erewhon]

Thank you for the daily reports, photos and humour.

It's a pleasant warm day expected temp 21C.

Wonderful that so many folk are receiving their vaccinations.

Stay well and safe everyone.

[kazu]

1 hour ago, rafinmd said:

I got a call today from my original vaccination site.  The clinic I had been counting on for tomorrow has been cancelled.

 

Roy

 

I’m not surprised with the storm.  So glad you were able to get your shot earlier 👍 

[kazu]

Hope this post doesn’t duplicate.  I posted and it went “poof”.

 

Happy to say that we had a piece of good news tonight.

 

@rafinmdyou can take Jose’s nephew off the Care list.  He was released from the hospital tonight.  He needed help to walk but he is home and I know he will be well cared for.

 

We are most grateful for the news since he was rushed to ICU when he came down with it.

 

Thank you all for your prayers and caring ❤️ 

[TiogaCruiser]

Good Afternoon, All,

We had a beautiful day here in the 70's with blue skies and puffy clouds. That is now gone, with 100% cloud cover and much cooler temperatures. My MTB group went for a 20 mile ride through the streets (😬) of some of the beach towns, and as we were riding along the coast, Amtrak Surfliner went by. It brought to mind the last several times I took that train to San Diego to meet up with Veendam, and how i was supposed to do the same to join Maasdam last April). But enough of that- the ride was really a nice way to spend the morning. 🙂

 

25 minutes ago, rafinmd said:

The church where I worship is jointly affiliated with the Methodist and Presbyterian denominations.  We have been meeting by Zoom since late March.  Today was our annual meeting and both of our denominational leaders were present.  Everyone agreed that if these were usual times the services today would have been cancelled due to the weather.

 

Roy

Do you think your church will keep Zoom as an option for future inclement weather days?

Our leadership announced to our tech team that we will be continuing to provide a service in real time via Youtube, (now that we have the technology in place), when things go back to "normal", whatever that pans out to be. As it is, our outdoor service has attracted a few shoppers from the local Target, where apparently the music can be heard. For awhile we were doing a local broadcast on FM- but that proved to be rather unreliable. 

 

4 hours ago, rafinmd said:

I sailed to Antarctica twice recently, on the Crystal Symphony in 2016 and on the Prinsendam in 2019.  I'm going back a day (I meant to post then but got distracted) to the Symphony cruise.   On January 30 we visited Puerto Madryn on the West Coast of Chile.  I had booked a  tour to Punta Tombo Wildlife Sanctuary, about a 2-hour bus ride south of town.

 

 Not to be picky, but isnt that the east coast of Argentina? 🙂

 

[TiogaCruiser]

Now to finish off commentary on my 2013 trip to South America/Antarctica:

 

January 29, 2013

Buenos Aires

 

BsAs was our final stop for the cruise, and we were tied up for 2 nights among tens of thousands of containers. (Actually, the group coming on would also be at the dock for 2 nights also.) Wanting to see the Pampas, I booked myself into the HAL shorex to visit the Gauchos.

 

The drive was a bit over an hour to Santa Susana Estancia, which is set up with a large catering building, huge parrillas and an arena used by the Gauchos to display their horsemanship skills. It was hot and humid- about 100* F and 90+ something in the humidity department: Hot and sticky. Ahh- summer in Argentina.

 

On the way the guide showed us graphs of how meat is cut traditionally (different cuts than what we use in the US), and explained about the tradition of parrilla (watch out for the black (blood) sausage), a type of barbeque. We had some free time to walk around and watch the Gaucho show while we enjoyed an empanada and wine. The gauchos demonstrated how they teach groups of horses to stay together with the help of a dog. Next they demonstrated a game called sortija, which involves 3 gauchos galloping together toward an overhead crossbar, from which a set of rings were hung from ribbons. The rings were about 1 ½” in diameter. Each gaucho had a stick (like a jewelry ring sizer) he carried, and while at full gallop, they would reach up and “spear” the ring. If successful, (and they usually were), the ring would release from the ribbon, and the gaucho would then take the ring to one of the women watching and give it to her, claiming a kiss as his reward. Well, our guide didn’t say anything about that second tradition, and I was in the first round of ladies so “tagged”. Our group had a good laugh, and I took a lot of good natured teasing about how red I had become.

Lunch was fabulous. Our table got cooked veggies instead of the salads everyone else got. (Our guide told us later it was due to HAL’s contract that we could not be given anything raw). But then it was one plate after another of meat: that black blood sausage we were warned about, something like a tri-tip, a chicken breast, another type of steak, and yet another type of really tender steak. Honestly, I didn’t want to even look at meat for several days later.

After lunch the staff put on a show of traditional song and dance. One of the senior gauchos (I 'm not going to bet on his age) did an amazing set of dances with the boleadores (a set of rawhide balls connected with rope that are thrown at cattle so that they wrap around the hind legs, hobbling them. It is used in place of the lasso that American cowboys use.)  

January 30, 2013

My final day in Buenos Aires was spent on a HAL tour through the town, and a tango show that included lunch. It included the major tourist attractions in BsAs (Recolata, Florida Street, the Capitol, a bus ride through several of the districts, including Puerto Madero and La Boca. Our guide mentioned how good the ice cream was there, after we got back on the bus in La Boca. Her comment planted a seed in my brain to add “try the ice cream” to my to do list when I returned to BsAs several years later. (And that lead to my digging deeper, and my gelato infatuation.) 😋

Edited February 1, 2021 by TiogaCruiser

[Sharon in AZ]

36 minutes ago, kazu said:

Hope this post doesn’t duplicate.  I posted and it went “poof”.

 

Happy to say that we had a piece of good news tonight.

 

@rafinmdyou can take Jose’s nephew off the Care list.  He was released from the hospital tonight.  He needed help to walk but he is home and I know he will be well cared for.

 

We are most grateful for the news since he was rushed to ICU when he came down with it.

 

Thank you all for your prayers and caring ❤️ 

Oh Jacqui, such great news!  Praying for him to recover fully. 

[Sharon in AZ]

6 hours ago, bennybear said:

Good morning and thanks all!  
A year ago today, we said good bye to January and to Hawaii the next day, so missing the warmth and the sea! 

Looks like you caught the “green flash”!  Lovely picture!

[rafinmd]

36 minutes ago, TiogaCruiser said:

 

Do you think your church will keep Zoom as an option for future inclement weather days?

Our leadership announced to our tech team that we will be continuing to provide a service in real time via Youtube, (now that we have the technology in place), when things go back to "normal", whatever that pans out to be. As it is, our outdoor service has attracted a few shoppers from the local Target, where apparently the music can be heard. For awhile we were doing a local broadcast on FM- but that proved to be rather unreliable. 

 

 Not to be picky, but isnt that the east coast of Argentina? 🙂

 

Oops, yes on Puerto Madryn. 

 

 I expect my church to continue some form of online presence; not sure if it will be Zoom or not.  We have some members who have moved out of the immediate area who I think would like a virtual option for most weeks.  I really appreciate Zoom because we maintain more of a community rather than an unconnected group of spectators.  I think we will also maintain a regular Zoom presence for things like committee meetings.

 

Roy

[Sharon in AZ]

5 hours ago, Vict0riann said:

 

 

6 hours ago, Sharon in AZ said:

Do the parents accept them back?

Evidently !  We will see.  We just have to hope the parents don't lay another egg in the meantime!

Keep us all posted. They are really cute in  their own way...... one only a mother could love. 😊

[Sharon in AZ]

Good evening everyone!  Thank you for the Daily Rich and thank you for your lists Roy. 
 

I was hoping to have a report on my DM but the doctor seems to always visit at 7:00 pm. She is about the same as yesterday. It’s wait and see right now. 
 

The meal suggestion sounds different. Not sure if I would like Sloppy Joe’s on my pizza. But, coincidentally I have a pizza dough in the fridge pulled out from the freezer for a mushroom sausage pizza for Monday. I have a wonderful freezer pizza dough recipe. For tonight DH offered to make a steak, probably because I complained earlier that he doesn’t cook anymore. He used to be so creative. 
 

@ger_77 I made the salmon cakes for lunch today and really enjoyed them and I froze half for a future meal. We had fries along side. It was a nice lunch. Thank you for the recipe!

 

Have a great evening everyone!

 

Forgot to say that DD is definitely feeling better. She and her boyfriend ordered in Applebee’s for dinner for their one year anniversary.  Mom and Dad treated. 😊

Edited February 1, 2021 by Sharon in AZ

[cat shepard]

1 hour ago, kazu said:

Hope this post doesn’t duplicate.  I posted and it went “poof”.

 

Happy to say that we had a piece of good news tonight.

 

@rafinmdyou can take Jose’s nephew off the Care list.  He was released from the hospital tonight.  He needed help to walk but he is home and I know he will be well cared for.

 

We are most grateful for the news since he was rushed to ICU when he came down with it.

 

Thank you all for your prayers and caring ❤️ 

This is wonderful news, Jacqui!

[Quartzsite Cruiser]

@kazu  What great news to start off a new week and month,

[mamaofami]

1 hour ago, kazu said:

Hope this post doesn’t duplicate.  I posted and it went “poof”.

 

Happy to say that we had a piece of good news tonight.

 

@rafinmdyou can take Jose’s nephew off the Care list.  He was released from the hospital tonight.  He needed help to walk but he is home and I know he will be well cared for.

 

We are most grateful for the news since he was rushed to ICU when he came down with it.

 

Thank you all for your prayers and caring ❤️ 

That’s great news, Jacqui