After Tenerife we stopped on the island of Lanzarote, another of the Canary Islands. A tour took us to many highlights, one of which is the Natural Park of Los Volcanes. This view of one of the many craters is representative of the interesting landscape.
Well, Kathy & I are on another cruise. This cruise is a transatlantic cruise from Port Canaveral, FL to Lisbon, Portugal. Along the way we stopped at Tenerife in the Canary Islands. This was the view of the port of Santa Cruz as we approached the island after 7 days at sea.
We love sea days, but 7 days was a long time, even for us. Today we are sailing toward Lisbon, where we will disembark for 18 days in Portugal and Spain while the ship goes to drydock. We’ll re-board the same ship in Barcelona to return home.
Even though we’ve never owned a boat nor had the desire for one, Kathy & I rarely pass up an opportunity for a cruise. We took a harbor/river cruise in Port Huron, and technically took a ferry cruise to Mackinac Island, so why not one more?
When we first started making plans for our Keweenaw Peninsula trip we intended to try and do a day trip to Isle Royale National Park. As the name suggests, the park sits on an island in Lake Superior, actually closer to Canada than the US, but it is readily accessible from both sides of the lake.
Unfortunately we waited too long to make arrangements for a day trip to the island. There is only one ferry service that offers the chance of a day trip and it was already full. Alternatives would have required an overnight stay, but that’s not what we were looking for. It’s also possible to take a float plane out and back, but that is quite costly, especially just for a few hours.
The National Park Service operates a visitor center in Houghton, where we were staying. From the visitor center the NPS operates the Ranger III boat, carrying passengers and their gear to Isle Royale and back several days a week. In summer, they also offer cruises on the Portage Canal, the “river” that runs between Lake Superior and Keweenaw Bay. So we booked a cruise on the Ranger III and enjoyed a little more time on the water, learning about the history of the region and the role that the canal has played in the local economy over the years.
Those who know me know that I love to bring home “liquid souvenirs” from our travels. Our recent cruise on Celebrity Beyond was no exception. For our visit to the island of Barbados I had arranged a tour to take us to three distilleries. As luck would have it, our driver/guide for the day is a rum aficionado, so he was the ideal person for us to spend the day with. He also had a great place for us to have an authentic Bajan lunch!
We visited Foursquare, Mount Gay and Stade’s distilleries, and brought home several bottles from each. Just like with bourbon, gin and other spirits, rum distilleries all have their individual stories, methods and recipes. It is interesting to learn about them, in the interest of science, of course. 😉
I have finally completed all of the processing from our winter adventures and posted galleries on my Adobe Portfolio page.
With apologies to 2clicksaway for borrowing the title, I thought this group of photos made for an interesting study. Taken during our recent cruise aboard Celebrity Beyond.
I enjoy early mornings aboard a cruise, well before most of the people stumble out of bed and start looking for the first feeding opportunity. I only got up early one morning while we were aboard Norwegian Prima, and it happened to be the morning of our arrival in Roatan, Honduras. While I was able to watch as we approached the port, for the most part my favorite photos are the ones of different ship details, especially those lit up by all the LED lighting.
Our approach to New Orleans was really interesting, because it involved an 8-hour transit up the Mississippi River from the Gulf of Mexico starting around midnight. Sunrise occurred about an hour from our arrival, and I was up early to catch the morning light. This is an easy edit of one of my photos from that morning, although I have many more to go through once we get home. Needless to say, a quiet sail up the river in the early morning was quite special.
The first stop on our current cruise was the exotic Caribbean (not!) port of New Orleans. It was our first time there, and we did a bus tour, saw a concert at Preservation Hall and did LOTS of walking. It was interesting to visit, although as the day went on and the crowds got drunker, we had had enough. New Orleans…Check!
We’re headed to Tampa this morning for the last of our Cruise Trifecta.
