Robinson Cruse Island was a great place. Kim went hiking in the morning and then after lunch we both went back to check out the small village. In the afternoon we attended a Pirate Party where we were fed Lobster, Octopus, Crab empanada, and fried fish. We washed it down with Pisco Sours, a Chilian drink that is extremely good, limey and refreshing.
So, Robinson Crusoe was really Alexander Selkirk. He had the captain of the ship he was on drop him off there expecting to spend a few days and get picked by the ship again. Well, the ship wrecked and Alexander spent over 4 years there until another ship happened along. I guess hitch hiking wasn’t the best plan in those days. Early on, other ships had brought goats to these 3 Islands so that sailors passing through would always have fresh meat. We actually saw some goats up in the hills from our ship as we were, so this idea for fresh meat is still working.
Endemic to these Islands are the bright red Humming bird and the San Fernandez fir seal. We saw lots of both. The locals catch Lobster and ship them to the mainland (Chile). On Selkirk Island we saw men in fishing boats catching “bait” for the Lobster traps. The bait looked good enough to eat.
As we left Kim and I saw a Whale, only briefly, so no pictures. After talking to the Marine Expedition Leader, I am convinced that it was a very rare Beak Whale.
Speaking of hitchhikers, we found this Petrol hanging out on deck 9
This is a good map of the beginning part of our trip. I would say over half of the passengers will leave us in Papeete.
Well, I’ll leave you with these two pictures taken a few seconds apart, showing how much the ship was rolling. Notice that the rail is in the mountains in the first picture and in the Ocean on the second one.
Our first full day at sea was very relaxing and pleasurable. We attended a few lectures and learned about our next destination, The Juan Fernandez Archipelago, don’t let that fool you, it’s really Robinson Crusoe’s Island. It is 375 miles off the mainland of Chile, but still a part of Chile. More on that tomorrow after we have experienced it.
The picture above really says it all for me. When I can sail into the sunset every night with the love of my life, it really fits the website’s name, sailwest.net. Spoiler alert, Season 3 starts in January 2026 and leaves from Los Angeles, circling the “Ring of Fire” ending about 5 months later in Vancouver BC. Not totally west, but I can bend it, tune in and watch.
A little more about this ship.
As I said before it is new, it is designed for exploration, it is a class 5 icebreaker ship. Last week, it was in Antarctica. The ship is really small, the maximum passenger load is 264, but we are under that, the crew is 239. The other Seabourn ships are a bit larger, but not by much. We started to recognize crew members and passengers from prior sailings even before we boarded the ship. It is fun to see familiar faces as we embarked on the ship.
Well, it’s hard to come up with any pool chronicles when the pool deck looks like this. However, it seems that you don’t have to be at the pool to hear some funny stuff. We were sitting in an area called the Discovery Lounge watching a video about the ships most recent trip to Antarctica when a lady asks another passenger where the atrium is, she answers that she hasn’t found it yet. She asks the bartender and he takes her 20’ to the atrium. Shortly after that, a man holding a map of the ship, asks the same bartender “where is the atrium?”, again, the bartender takes him the 20’ to the atrium. Okay, I guess if you have never been on a cruise ship, you might not know what or where the atrium is. So, I Googled it and here’s their definition… “a central hall in a modern building, typically rising through several stories and having a glazed roof”. Well, I guess it is not specific to Cruise ships then, is it?
Then, at the daily briefing, a time we are given an explanation of the next days activities, after learning much about the 3 Islands that make up the Juan Fernandez Archipelago, a man asks if the Islands are mostly inhabited by Polynesians. The speaker almost lost it this time, but he patiently responded, “as I said earlier, this is part of Chile and most of the residents are Chilean”. From the side of the room, another expedition leader said ” yea like 110%”.
One would think that if you signed up for a trip like this you would do a little research before embarkation day, even I do and I’m usually one of the worst at preparation.
Yes, it goes on, our first stop is what they refer to as a dry landing, meaning the Zodiac boats let us off at a dock, they showed us a picture. They also described a “wet” landing and showed a picture. A guy asks, “what if our shoes get wet”? Again, how does one answer that without making the guest feel like a complete idiot?
Dinner was fantastic tonight, it was a signature meal designed by the captain, so there weren’t many choices, you ate what the Captain put on the menu. In season one on the Island of Samoa, I was handed a coconut with a straw sticking out of it. I hadn’t tried fresh coconut milk since my first trip to Hawaii in the late 70’s, so I tried it again. I still didn’t like it, okay I will pass next time. Well. Tonight’s appetizer was smoked salmon and caviar. The caviar was placed right on top of the salmon, so, thinking back to the coconut milk, I decided I would try it again. Unlike the times in the past when I didn’t like it, tonight was different, I liked it. So, next time I will try it again.
This map gives you some idea where we are and where you are, for a better perspective and additional information about time zones. That is to say if you are in Texas, you are 2 hours behind us.
Stay tuned for tales from Robinson Crusoe Island…..
Exactly 21 hours after Richard and Joan picked us up from our house, we were in our hotel room at the Hilton Gardens Hotel in Santiago Chile. The flight from Portland to Dallas was uneventful, so with a little more than 3 hours to kill before our next flight, we found ourselves in the American Flagship lounge relaxing. When the time came, we boarded our 787 Dreamliner and were off to Santiago. The sea perch dinner we were served was outstanding for airline food. Our flight attendant, Brandi, was also outstanding. After a few hours, I had to ask her how she got on a long-haul trip at such a young age, and she told me that she felt very lucky. This was just her third long-haul trip and her first time serving in business class. She was outstanding. I usually don’t write “reviews “or answer surveys, but I sure did about her. Everything about our trip was amazing.
After arriving at the Hotel, we decided we really didn’t want to go site seeing, so we stayed there all day; napping, showering, and watching food network shows in Spanish. Lunch at the hotel was amazing and we could sit outdoors, it was 77 degrees out there. Perfect.
At 9:30 this morning, the front desk called to let us know that our driver was waiting for us, he wasn’t supposed to be there before 10. He took us to the San Antonio pier where we boarded our ship and found our home away from home in cabin 721. This ship is even more amazing than we imagined. The room is bigger, the bathroom is bigger, but the shower, not so much. I guess there is no such thing as a big shower on a cruise ship. We are very happy with our decision to book this trip. That says a lot more for Kim than me, I have the standards of your dog, you had me at go but say go on a boat and I’m so there…….
Okay, although not Pool Chronicle worthy, here’s what we heard a dinner tonight. As I have explained before, the officers and now the expedition leaders invite passengers to join them at their dinner table for conversation and, of course, dinner. We were sitting next to such a table where one of the expedition leaders was the host. As dinner went on, the guests started talking about jet lag and its effects on them. Then one passenger said, “Now I guess we will have to deal with the same time changes on this ship”. The Expedition leader says, “ I think we will go through 3 or 4 of them”. I almost choked on my Black Cod Fellet. For those of you who are not already laughing, here’s a geography lesson for you. Chile is one hour ahead of New York, New York is 3 hours ahead of Puget Island Washington (we live there). We are sailing to Australia, which is a bit west of Puget Island. It is also on the other side of the international date line, which makes them a day ahead of the USA. So, 3 or 4 hours? That puts us south of somewhere between Denver and Los Angeles. And he’s going to teach us what?
Thanks to all who have reached out to us to wish us a bon voyage. Tomorrows a sea day, so, stay tuned for more…….
Hello friends and family, yes, we are about to begin our next trip. We are traveling tomorrow to Santiago Chile and boarding our ship to sail from there to Darwin Australia. 55 days through the south sea islands. Our ship this year is the almost brand new Seabourn Pursuit. It is an expedition ship, that is to say it doesn’t go to big cities, it goes to remote places, sometimes deserted islands. As a matter of fact our first stop is Robinson Crusoe island. Read the ship details on our website and familiarize yourself with the ship.
We have been pretty much home bodies since we returned last May from our “Season One“ blogging trip. A few short trips here and there like when we went on a troll tour in the Seattle area, with a side trip the Vancouver Island to visit some old biking friends of Kim’s. We also flew to Bozeman to visit our dear friends there.
My winter project was to build Kim a greenhouse. I’m almost ready to put the dirt in so she can plant her garden in late May when we return from this trip. We have started what I will jokingly call a pre-trip (or just trip) tradition. A few years back we had planned a trip that included sailing around the Polynesian islands on a tall sailing ship, a RV tour of New Zealand and a cruise around New Zealand ending in Sydney Australia before flying home on Christmas Day. Well, Kim flew to Houston for a visit with her parents; while taking out the garbage, she slipped and broke her wrist. After a trip to the emergency room in Houston we decided to fly her home for surgery that included screwing a plate into her wrist and a cast. Well, we made the trip cast and all. Then a couple years ago we planned a National Geographic Northwest passage trip. We were to fly from Portland to anchorage Alaska where we met our leaders for a charter flight to Nome Alaska to board the ship. When we got to the Portland airport, Kim got out of the car and just disappeared. I couldn’t see her anywhere. Well, she had tripped on her shoelaces and fell. Thinking she was okay; we made our flight to Anchorage as scheduled. The next morning she realized she was not that okay and went to the emergency room to find she had chipped her kneecap. Well, we still made the charter flight to Nome and got aboard the ship. Kim had to forgo the land trips for the first week or so, but it all worked out and we had another wonderful trip that ended in Greenland. Well, with this trip coming up I jokingly told Kim to be careful so as not to hurt herself just before this trip. Well, it wasn’t her. This time it was my turn. While carrying a roll of ground cover cloth out to the new greenhouse, I tripped in the garage and fell flat on my face. My face and body hit the Concrete floor, my left shoulder hit the pile of lumber that I tripped over. I smashed my face, my glasses, chest pretty good. Kim called 911 and by the time they got there, I was sitting up but I couldn’t move my left arm at all. The ambulance crew assest me and decided I needed to go to the emergency room. I politely declined their offer and Kim took me to the urgent care unit at Kaiser. With X-rays they confirmed I had fractured my humuras bone, that’s the big bone right above your funny bone. Who makes up these names anyway? Neither are really very funny. That was January 23rd, by the way, just 7 weeks ago. It’s better now, but I’m still sleeping in my lazyboy chair. I’m thinking you might just see me sleeping in a lounge chair by the pool some nights. The worst part is I’m left-handed and yes it was my left arm that took the blow. Orthopedic doctor said I will never have full range of motion again. I’ll just be happy when the pain gets to a tolerable point and I can lift more than 5 pounds. Enough, of our “trip” tradition. We’re very excited to begin this adventure. And I’m excited to get my blogging fingers limbered up. Not to mention “The Pool Chronicles, you just can’t make this shit up” reports.
With the Super Bowl in the rear-view mirror, we spent the rest of the day cruising to Wellington. As usual, Kim shall go exploring and I will go on watch (for what I don’t know yet) and let others entertain me without them having a clue that they are giving me really good material for my next blog. Today has a high of only 66 degrees and a low of 62. Kim is going to freeze. Good thing she drought her winter garb.
Today we booked us on the 2026 World Cruise Ring of Fire Hidden Gems Cruise. Once again it starts in Los Angeles and goes briefly to Hawaii then spends a few days in Tahiti and through a bunch of Islands we have never heard of before it swings up to Hong Kong. From there it takes us up thru Japan then on to the Aleutian Islands and Alaska before dumping us off in Vancouver BC. 129 days on board and there should not be any war conflicts. So, are we hooked? Maybe, but we are telling you this now, so you too can join us for the Cruise of a lifetime part two.
It turned out to be a very windy day, so all the stupid stuff got blown away before I heard it.
This photo, as with many of the photos that I post are taken by Kim and I will try to give her credit each time I use one of hers.
