January 25, 2024

Another day, another degree closer to the Equator.  We will cross it in 2 days.

Shout out to my daughter on her 47^th birthday.  Happy Birthday Sheila.

We love all of your comments, we start each day reading them aloud and discussing them. After over 20 years of marriage, most of our followers know both Kim and me, but there are still a few that I have never met and vice versa.  Comments from those give us even more to talk about as we share with each other our history with our friends.  Keep them coming, it keeps us feeling connected to home, family, and friends.

More reasons we like small ship sailing; in Maui, the head chef went to the fish market and bought fresh tuna and vine ripened pineapple (another market), if you like pineapple and have never had if fresh form the vine, it’s amazingly different and better tasting than store bought.  And Tuna fresh from the fish market, wow, that’s why we had the tuna ceviche tasting that day.  The beverage manager went to the local brewery and bought up a few cases of the local brew for us to consume on board.  I spoke with him today and he said he will do that at every port.  I now declare that this is no longer a “World” cruise, it is a quest to find beers around the world.  I knew this was a good idea! This kind of stuff just doesn’t happen on the mega ships.

Today we get to listen to Craig Weldon, a 3 star Army  General, Chief of security at the Pentagon during 9/11.  He will tell stories of what actually happened that day from a personal perspective. My brother was working in D.C at the time and we had planned for me to fly out and do some remodeling of his house about two weeks later.  One day he took me to the Pentagon crash site, it will forever be burned into my brain.

We learned yesterday that we have a stow away on board.  A Hawaiian Hawk has taken up residency aboard.  This also happened to us when we sailed from Japan to Alaska, a bird stayed with us for 3 weeks.  I talked to an officer of the ship about this.  He said it is actually quite common.  A Bird, for whatever reason will follow the ship out of port then realize, oops, I can’t turn around and fly home, it’s too far.  He said that they contact the local bird sanctuary at the next port and ask them to meet us at the dock where they capture the bird and take care of it.

Dinner tonight: each night has a theme, tonight was Thai.  Kim loves spicy, I suffer for days after eating spicy; I love sushi, but Kim only goes with me as a very supportive wife.  So, when we saw the menu last night and Kim exclaimed yea, Thai, I said yea sushi.  A match made in heaven.  Separate restaurants, but we each enjoyed it. 

And now a message from our local sponsor: Computer link Northwest.  Steve Carson.  I didn’t know anything about blogging a month ago.  I contacted my dear friend Steve Carson, whom I will call Carson, because I’m Steve.  He set this site up and nursed me through it to the point that I could operate it.  I now am mentoring a fellow passenger on using his blog and he said to me today “you are amazing, you know everything”.  No, I don’t!  Carson does.  So. If you are fighting your computer or want something more, contact him at clnw.com.  It doesn’t matter where you are because with your permission, he can log into your computer.  The best part (stop reading Carson) is he will send you a teeny tiny bill.

Lastly, full disclosure, last night I took this picture of the full moon reflecting across the water.  My smart phone is sometimes not so smart, and it enhanced the colors and made it look like I took a photo of the sun reflecting across the water.   I have never edited a photo until now, but I turned it into a black and white, enjoy.

More tomorrow, maybe. Who Knows…..