Pacific Ocean

Saturday, 14 August 2010
Pacific Ocean 25 degrees N 142 degrees W
Our day in Los Angeles focussed on meeting the challenge of American immigration procedures and the crowds at Universal Studios. We survived to tell the tale and now find ourselves 1367km south west of Los Angeles on our way to Honolulu.
There was little to see in LA but cars as we took the 60 minute bus ride out to Universal but the highways and overpasses were impressive and we did see the Hollywood sign through the early morning haze.
I’d bought our entry ticket on-line so were able to walk straight up to the entry turnstile where our finger prints (which were taken last trip) were used to bring up our identity pictures...a bit of a mind blower to start the day!
John and Ally had tried to talk us out of taking the trip because it would be too rushed to be worthwhile. However we had a great day. We were in the studio by 10:30am and were able to view three shows - WaterWorld, Shrek and Animal Antics; take an hour tram tour of the backlots where you’re shown the various lots, set up for Universal movies ( like the street built from styro foam for the Smurfs) and experience the technical tricks of Jaws, Jurassic Park, King Kong, Psycho, earthquakes, floods, train crashes etc ; experience the 40 minute queue to get on the tram and still had time to sit outside the House of Horrors and enjoy a cold dipping icecream before getting back on the bus at 3:30pm.
Kobi will be pleased to know we had a chat with Shrek and bought a waffle off Donkey but we didn’t see Dragon - only in the show. The dog did tricks for us and jumped over the boy as he took off around an obstacle course which he completed in 28 sec while the Orang-utan blew us kisses. I loved the window displays in the shops out in the City Walk at the front of the studios. Imagine a whole shop given over to selling just socks!
Hodo One was impressed with how they could move crowds around and with the amount of traffic. We drove down a 14 lane highway with every lane full and never saw an accident. Overpasses curved over our heads three and four layers deep carrying traffic away into the suburbs... amazing.
Maybe you will have your third prime minister since we left by the time we cover the last 7 500km of this journey. We picked up postal votes in Los Angeles, did our voting by yesterday and will have these dropped off to the consulate in Honolulu for return to Australia. We’ve just seen a Skynews clip of Tony in his budgie smugglers under the banner, “the one politician who has little to hide.”

Off San Diego

Tuesday, 10 August 2010
Happy birthday to all those celebrating birthdays over the last week or so - hope you all enjoyed your special day. Love, kisses and hugs to you all.
Sorry for the long silence. I’ve been suffering from the Norfolk Island complaint – “morla will do”. I am rather surprised at how many tomorrows have slipped by during this time.
We loved the Caribbean and our trip through the Panama was one of the highlights of the tour. Have a look at all the people gathered at the exit at Miraflores Lock to see us pass through...lots of Aussie, Aussie, Aussie...Oi,Oi,Ois exchanged between ship and shore.
In Acapulco we came closer to solving the mystery of our “cannon ball” (a round stone I found when we first built our house in Gladstone)...We had already learnt from one of our lecturers that the Spanish did make cannons out of granite...and low and behold on display in the Acapulco Museum in the Fuerte de San Diego were these cannon balls, exact replicas of the stone I found in Gladstone.
In Manzanillo we travelled out along the Cutuylan Peninsula to a turtle sanctuary and helped release the previous nights hatchings of the Olive Ridley turtles that they are trying to protect along with two other types – the eastern pacific green turtle and the rarer leatherbacks.
Since then we’ve had two more sea days as we’ve made our way to Los Angeles...beautiful warm balmy days of sunshine and smooth seas...tried to catch photos of dolphins playing under our deck ...but could only catch the splashes that showed where they’d been.
Today I toured the galley and listen to the Executive Chef, Manlio Cuzzolin, explain the catering side of ship life. The mind boggles when you hear that each day the average amount of ... used is:-
· Potatoes 400kg
· Eggs 9000 units
· Coffee 1210 litres
· Watermelons 400 kg
And they use 227L of detergent to clean up after us! Tomorrow is a turnaround day and the start of the final leg of our journey. So tomorrow about 80-85 tons of food will be loaded on board for this leg.
“Never let a chance go by” has to be the motto of this ship. On the last day of each leg they have a big discount sale. Our tour of the galley poured us out into the back of the dining room where the sale for this leg was set up. You couldn’t get out without having to battle your way through the whole sale...These bright eyed little bears were looking up eagerly into our faces as we made our way out through the galley door...I do hope somebody came and bought some. They looked so eager to be bought when I took their photo.
Time is running out. It will be back to reality soon. Only five more ports after Los Angeles. We are back up to 32 degrees north but from tomorrow it’s a downhill run to Australia. We gain another hour tonight so have another 25 hour day. Unfortunately mid pacific we have to pay back time and will have to skip a whole day.

Update 3

1:25pm

We have left Pedro Miguel Locks and will be in Miraflores Locks (the next camera) in a few minutes... Having a great day...Big storm developing to our port side...This lock will lower us through two locks into the Pacific Ocean.

Update 2

11:50am
Now we are arriving at Centenial Bridge for the next shot of the ship.

Panama Update

Wasn't much that could be seen was there?



This is what you missed.

Panama

6:45am
We are in the first Gatun Lock.

Caribbean Sea

2/08/2010 8:18 PM
Caribbean Sea
A reminder - the Panama Webcam is found at http://www.pancanal.com/ and Dawn Princess can be seen passing though it at thius site.
Tomorrow morning’s transit begins with the arrival of the pilot around 5:00am. We should be in the Gatun Locks between 6:30 and 8:00am (ship’s time - Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadaljara zone). Our HOBOS from UBOBO sign is ready for hanging while we are in the lock. The animals have their spot picked out on the balcony and our champagne breakfast is booked for 7:30am.
Gatun Lock lifts us from the Atlantic into Gatun Lake which we cruise across. Then the Miraflores Locks lowers us into the Pacific. We are on the port (left) side above the second last lifeboat. I don’t know where Centenary Bridge is so don’t know when we’ll be passing there. We should be at the Miraflores Locks between 3:00 and 4:00pm. I’ll try to publish another blog in the morning to update any interested viewers.
Curacao was very colourful and we enjoyed a most pleasant day ashore. It is an island that was once an ancient coral reef that was lifted up from the ocean floor abut 400 000 years ago. The soil is very poor, white limestone much like that on Heron Island – the water is as pretty too!!! Once the houses, built of cement from the island soils, were all white. A Dutch governor decided that this was a health hazard for locals with the glare causing migraines and damage to eyesight. So he encouraged everyone to paint their houses and now we have this bright liquorice-all-sort lolly-coloured housing all over the island...Wayne and Kim Lester would feel right at home there...Any way to continue the story, when the governor left it was discovered that he was a major share holder in the paint company. But the citizens loved their new brightly coloured houses anyway and although the law no longer requires it they keep on panting their houses in these lovely strong, bright colours.
After our onshore excursion, we lunched on this very pleasant deck overlooking the waterway into the Willemstad port. During the tour, we bought ourselves some genuine Curacao Curacao and on our deck after dinner we celebrated another successful day with this delicious but very potent liqueur.
Hope some of you may get an opportunity to spot us on the webcam. If not we’ll have it on the World Tour 2010 DVD. The camera crew are going on shore to photograph us as we go through.