Transatlantic: West Indies to Spain (2022)

 Well,  it has been many days since I have posted to our Atlantic crossing.  These have been sea days.  There will be 8 straight  days since we left St. Maarten.  Originally it would have been 6 days with a stop in the island of Madeira ( Funchal), Portugal another sea day and then to Cadiz, Spain.  However, apparently there is some mechanical issues and the captain announced that we would bypass Madeira and go straight, albeit slowly, to Cadiz.  Even with the extra day of sailing we will get into Cadiz at noon rather than 9:00.  Some of the days have been a bit bouncy but we are both weathering it nicely and we are back to smoother sailing again, slowly. Viking has kept us busy with some interesting lecturers (Behind the scenes in Washington during the Clinton era by, Melinda Bates, who was the visitor liaison for the full 8 years.  Another lecturers who is giving us various tales about espionage during WWII and beyond.   We h...

Made it into San Juan early this morning and were able to do a little bit of sightseeing.  Although the temperature was in the low eighties it was quite humid so it seemed warmer.  Learned something from some of the Balineses crew members and thought I would share as it is fascinating:  In general, Balinese people name their children  depending on the order they are born , and the names are the same for both males and females. The firstborn child is named Wayan, Putu or Gede, the second is named Made or Kadek, the third child goes by Nyoman or Komang, and the fourth is named Ketut. Komang is our room steward and Kadek waited on us at dinner.  Kadek told us this naming system at dinner but I had to look it up to be sure I understood him. We flew into the newer (renewed?) section of San Juan and most of the buildings were bland in color (i.e. beige) and just square or rectangular.  Our Viking ship, however, was docked in the old section of San Juan and which ...

Transatlantic: West Indies to Spain (2022) On the "road" again...sort of, (not the road and not again since this is the first time we will travel across the ocean on a boat).  New adventure!!!  Downloaded some books and a link to the newspaper, got my crossword puzzles and some Netflix shows....6 straight days of sailing on the ocean blue....AND got my wrist bands in case the ocean is not kind.   Not taking my computer so it will be interesting how well I can keep up with my blog on my phone.  The computer just seemed too bulky for this trip so hopefully I wont' miss the ease of my user friendly computer.