In Transit

31/07/2010 4:01 PM
In Transit to Curacao
We may not have escaped the Bermuda triangle. We’re once again experiencing “technical problems” and have been without power for two hours floating in the Caribbean Sea...take down the coordinates in case we disappear - 12.33N 64.26W.
If you’d like to see us live on TV you can on Tuesday between 5:00am and 4:30pm as we transit the Panama Canal (Our time. It should already be Wednesday in Australia) . Ships using the canal can be seen on the Canal’s webcam - http://www.pancanal.com/ . We googled Panama Canal Webcam today and were able to see a container ship moving through. For the occasion, we have joined our fellow passenger and made a [HOBOS from UBOBO] poster to hang from our balcony...Watch for it...We’ll be on our balcony for a champagne breakfast and to enjoy the day...Queensland should be 15 hours behind us time-wise...Remember look above the second last lifeboat and under the word Dawn.
Barbados was green, green, green!!! Caught a shot of Hobo 1 under the Jade Vine Pergola in the Andromeda Gardens... saw some Santa bulls and these indigenous black bellied sheep...these old ewes pictured standing under an Australian she oak tree, had been separated from the herd which was penned by the road side for us to stop and see up close...Drove all over the island and saw this ancient built in 1727 and duse until 1945 to crush sugar. It was restored between 1960 and 1990 and is now open for viewing...We ended the day with the most amazing folkloric show back on board...One of the performers was on stilts about 1.5 m high...and the tricks he could do on these two thin bits of metal had the theatre gasping as did the limbo queen who went under the limbo bar about 30cm off the floor while it was on fire!!!
This weekend is the Crop Over Festival on Barbados...yesterday locals were setting up stalls for the whole length of the waterfront in Bridgetown...would have been great to have been there today to see the whole community in party mood!!!

Antigua

30/07/2010 5:55 AM
Off St Lucia - 13.42N; 60.20E
Woke at 5:30am to find we’d left the Caribbean Sea, rounded St Lucia and heading back out into the Atlantic on our course to Barbados. I am sitting on the balcony watching an Atlantic storm approach from the North east. We’ve survived the Bermuda Triangle so I trust we can handle this storm...plenty of thunder and lightning in it but just misty rain in the early stages of its arrival...I find it interesting that you can hear the rain on the sea...has that same wrap-up- and- get- into- bed –with-a-book sound appeal of rain on a tin roof...Unfortunately the ship passes through storms very quickly and all you’d get time to read, if you were lucky, would be a comic!!!
I’ve been bed ridden with the an upper chest infection since New York...a trip to the doctor...an “Aaah!” and 6 penicillin capsules cost us $175 but at least I was able to make our “Lobster and Champagne” cruise of Antigua...I think the money spent on this cruise was more beneficial than the penicillin...It felt so good to have fresh air in your lungs! On second thoughts it may have been the champagne, captain’s punch, calypso music and dancing...whatever...I am feeling more myself this morning.
(Warren may be interested in how many linesmen it takes to release a ship in places outside Australia... In Antigua, two on the wharf, two on the dolphin...Also wondered if we were watching the next Viv Richards in action on the beach...a fellow passanger thought the practice wicket may explain the quality of the West Indies team today.)

New York

26 July 2010
New York was a surprise - a mixture of old and new all beautifully blending together to make a very clean, neat, inviting city. Being Sunday the streets were quiet and filled with markets...we visited Ground Zero...a more moving experience than we expected...we enjoyed a coffee in the Financial Centre which has an observation deck overlooking the site where a bridge once linked the centre to the Twin Towers...It was quite chilling to think people would have been doing exactly the same thing on 9/11... and be as unprepared as we were for such a disaster.
In the afternoon we went to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum which was right next to where the Dawn was moored. We went on a submarine, “the Growler”, which was used during the Cold War as a nuclear missile carrier. It carried four regulus missiles with nuclear war heads. Again our tour was interrupted by an afternoon storm but we spent the time on the hangar deck exploring displays ranging from the Intrepid’s role in WW2 to their retrieving of a Mercury space capsule.
Unfortunately the rain did prevent us touring a Concorde aircraft on display as well...disappointing but I’m still coughing and I didn’t want to take any risks of getting wet.
Again the rain cleared to give us a magical sail away as the twilight melted into a full moon rising over Manhattan before we headed back out into the Atlantic to begin our three day cruise to Antigua.

Newport

26 July 2010
Newport was delightful... Being a Saturday everyone was out sailing, picnicking, relaxing...a heavy rainstorm brought an end to this late in the afternoon but the sunshine that followed gave us a very picturesque sail away.
We anchored out in the harbour and went ashore in the ship’s tenders. We meandered our way in through a harbour filled with all shapes and sizes of water craft - drooling all the way!!!
It was our day to visit the grand mansions built in the late 1800s as summer “cottages” by the rich magnates of New York. The mansion we visited was chosen for a wedding photo shoot...although the house is showing its age the owners have filled it with an amazing collection of furniture and other collector items from palaces all over Europe...amazing...one item that caught my eye was the tea set Napoleon took with him into battle...the cups and saucers delicately painted with little “legs” on both the cups and the saucers.

Boston

24/07/2010 9:29 AM

Survived Boston...a great city...tidy, welcoming, well laid out city, full of History, reminds one of Rockhampton. Very interesting to see historical buildings standing proudly beside their modern neighbours.

We are now cruising into Newport at 10kts as a result of a seasonal management plan to protect the 400 remaining North Atlantic Right Whale that cruise these waters. They are apparently lazy and not easy to disturb and were frequently hit by ships until the speed restrictions were introduced.

South of Newfoundland

21 July 2010
South of Newfoundland
Sorry to all followers for the period of silence. Hope you were able to find your way through the catch up blogs yesterday.
We safely made it through the night and did not follow Titanic to the depths. We passed over her resting place at 0006am this morning. We’d been steaming towards this point since Dublin and had not seen a ship but as we neared the site, a ship’s lights became visible. At first we thought it was a fishing boat but then decided it must be a research vessel because it was right on the spot where the Titanic sunk. The captain confirmed our suspicions on the ship’s noon update today. It was a research vessel and at the time we were passing they actually had a camera down in the wheel house examining the bronze steering column which is apparently beginning to disintegrate. So in the photo you can see the moon, the ship and the wake of the Dawn Princess above the wreck of the Titanic at latitude 41043.9N 49056.9W. We passed about a mile to the north.
Hobo 1 can now relax!!!!

Mid Atlantic

Tuesday, 20 July 2010
This is quick catch up 4.
At Sea 15th- 19th July
It is a rather sobering thought to see a crush of grey headed patrons with walking sticks, hearing aids and wheel chairs pushing and shoving to get into a Beatles concert. Where have the years gone?
Four young men joined us in Southampton and performed a Beatles concert for us but we were unable to see them because we could not find a seat into the 550 seat theatre. We were rather pleased to hear they were causalities of the aborted Dublin stopover and had to stay on with us to Boston. Consequently they have performed for us three more times and every time the theatre has been packed – in fact it was filled 20-30 minutes before opening time. Tonight we are having a “White Hot Party” on the open decks and they will be playing for the last time. You would swear they were the real Beatles.
With no entertainers the cruise staff has had to be really innovative. Last night two of our entertainers who play music in the Atrium each night put on a musical quiz show for us which was excellent – “Drama on the High Seas” to quote... “an “award winning” performance of the murder of the master mariner at midnight on a misty Monday in the mid-Atlantic with a Mayan Machete.”
Another set of 4 Russian musicians gave us an excellent concert of popular classical music. Could they make those strings talk?
During the day we’ve continued our trivia games but are suffering the absence of Ally and John. We’ve been to three cooking classes with Master Chef, Commendatore Alfredo Marzi. We now know how to make Swans “Swimming in a Sea of Chocolate”.
Afternoons have been spent watching movies – loved Saturday’s movie “Leap Year” and saw “It’s Complicted” again just as good as the first time we saw it.
Imagine everyone’s joy when the sun came out Monday and we had a 360 degree unimpeded view of the horizon. A walk along the deck was very slow as everyone stopped to chat and share their joy.