Auckland, NZ

Our excursion with the private tour company was a success.  There were only four of us, Vann and I plus two fellows from another cruise.  Our jolly driver-guide, Jeanine, showed us a fine time, taking us to all the places promised and then some.  Our first stop was a park memorializing MJ Savage, an early community organizer and Labour Party elected official.

This photo does not adequately represent the beauty of the grounds and its flower beds, which were spectacular.

Our second stop was at the Winter Garden, a complex of greenhouses filled with seasonal color.  There was also a fernery, where we saw New Zealand’s national symbol, the silver fern.

At its narrowest, New Zealand is only 16 kilometers (about 9 miles) wide.  This photo overlooks the narrow strip of land separating New Zealand from the Tasman Sea and Australia beyond.

Our next stop was to observe a colony of gannets, a migratory bird nesting on the steep cliffs of West Auckland.  There were hundreds of them!  Gannets mate for life, and while they live separately for most of their lives, the pair return each year to the cliffs where they were born and share in the raising of their chick.

Jeanine got us back to our ship just in time for sail-away.  We went to the forward observation lounge to watch as we pulled out of Auckland Harbor and found that an about dozen sailboats had gathered to escort us.  Colorful spinnakers filled the harbor on a glorious afternoon.

And so we’re off to the Bay of Plenty.  The following day will find us at the Art Deco city of  Napier, New Zealand, in the wine-growing region of Hawke’s Bay.

Auckland, New Zealand

Today we have a new adventure.  On our Norway cruise a year ago, we learned from other passengers about ShoreExcursions.com.  It’s a company that monitors the itineraries of cruise ships and offers alternative excursions, often more economically than what’s proposed onboard.  We’re trying them for the first time today on their “West Auckland Countryside” tour.  Will report back…

More from Waitangi

The sun that rose this morning has stayed with us all day.  Our local guide said that the weather was bad all last week, so all were happy for the sunshine and blue sky.

One observation I want to note is that the color of the ocean has changed from blue to green.  Does depth explain it?  Our ship captain in his noon report always tells us how much water is under our keel.  As we made our crossing from the Cook Islands, it was often in the 5000-meter range, more than 15,000 feet!  Now that we are anchored in the Bay of Islands, the depth is significantly less.  I’ll keep an eye open for a ship’s officer and ask.

We opted for today’s included excursion, which was by motor coach into the central part of the island.  We tendered in a couple of hours early so we could see the town.  Of interest in Paihia was an old stone church, St. Paul’s Anglican, built in 1926, but on the site of  the original 1823 mission station established by Henry Williams.

The highlight of our coach tour was a walk to Rainbow Falls near the town of  Kerikeri.  With a drop of  about 60-feet, this spectacular falls put on her finest show this sunny day as her spray revealed a perfect rainbow over the stream below.  These photos are from two of the lookouts along the trail:

The topography here is of rolling hills rather than the mountains we will see elsewhere in New Zealand.  Owing to its rich soil and subtropical climate, the area is renowned for its production of kiwi fruit, citrus, and avocados.  Hoping to find all of them on our menu this evening!

Auckland, New Zealand, tomorrow.

Arriving in New Zealand

Good Morning!  It’s Tuesday, January 28, and we are arriving at our first New Zealand port, Waitangi.  It’s part of the Bay of Islands at the northern end of the country.  Wish I could send you a 360-degree video of our approach, as we are totally surrounded by islands.  Here’s what we see from our balcony “by dawn’s early light.”

Like it never even happened…January 24th that is!

Crossing the International Date Line is discombobulating.  We went to sleep the night of Thursday, the 23rd, and woke up on Saturday morning, the 25th.  Poof!  There it was, gone!  We had made a dinner date  for the 24th with a lovely couple of Aussies we had met on the Moorea ferry, and I panicked for a minute thinking we might have stood them up.  Then we remembered about crossing the IDL, and a quick email to our Aussie friends got everything rescheduled and back on track.

The International Date Line is an imaginary line that extends between the North and South Poles at approximately 180-degrees longitude.  It was in 1884 that the International Meridian Conference came up with this solution to the time zone problem, a place on the earth where the 24 time zones would“reset.”  It was placed on the opposite side of the globe from the prime meridian in Greenwich, England.

To compensate for the loss of a day, the Viking Sky is having a party!  “Dinner Under the Southern Stars”  will be another of the fabulous feasts that our culinary team prepares for us.  The pool deck is being transformed into an al fresco dining room, where separate stations will be offering a jaw-dropping spread of all things delicious, all presented with great flair.  Leaving now to join Gloria and Bob, a couple we’ve met onboard, for a pre-party drink.  More later…

People are the same everywhere.  On our way to Happy Hour, we walked past the pool patio where the dinner would take place later last evening  For a moment, I thought we were back at Wind Crest, where amphitheater and A&E seats are “reserved” days in advance.  People had taken up residence at most of the tables, leaving a member of their party or some other indication that the table was taken.  Had to laugh.  But when we got to the place where we were to meet our friends, only Gloria was there.  Bob was anchoring down a window table for four up on the pool deck!

Change of Itinerary

 We left Hawaii on schedule, headed for French Polynesia, a trip of five days at sea.  Shortly after our departure, the announcement came that we had a medical emergency onboard and would be heading straight to Papeete, Tahiti, where medical attention was available.  That meant that we would not visit Moorea or Bora Bora, as scheduled.  This was, of course, a disappointment, but most agreed that if it were us, we would have appreciated the priority attention.  Papeete it was.

As we were barreling toward Tahiti, our onboard excursion team was hard at work on Plan B.  You always gotta have Plan B!  Somehow they were able to set up ferry tickets for us from Papeete to Moorea.  And then we would double back to Bora Bora.

Vann and I did set foot on Moorea, albeit briefly, but a pin in the map is a pin in the map!  And the following day, we docked in Bora Bora.  What a glorious spot!  The shades of aqua in the lagoon were gorgeous, and the landscape was plush and green.  In addition to our land excursion, we snagged two seats on an island cruise with fabulous Ray, our captain and guide.  Before returning to port, Ray showed us the beauty of “his office” and even serenaded us on his ukulele.  Loved every minute!

Ship-Building Competition

From Hawaii, it takes five days at sea to reach French Polynesia, our next port.  What to do with five days at sea?  Viking provides lots of options to keep those days interesting; the one that Vann and I said yes to is a ship-building competition.  

Passengers were invited to form teams to design and build a boat out of repurposed and recycled (read: “scavenged and plundered”) materials found onboard.  The boat has not only to float but also to transport cargo, a bottle of Aquavit, the length of the pool!  

We have a good team, one of whom is an engineer, and he has taken on the basic hull construction.  Vann and I are in charge of the cargo hold: an empty Listerine bottle with its front cut off!  I had a rather flat-ish box, so we sunk the bottle into a contoured hole in the box and decorated it like our pool deck.  Came out pretty cool!

We’ll tie the bottle down with the cords I found in a Papeete fabric shop.  The pool ladder is two drinking straws threaded onto toothpicks sticking out of the deck.  I found the “tile” online and printed it in our business center.  My Honolulu friend Esther will recognize the aqua tissue and what used to be the gift bag she brought when she visited us onboard.  (Sorry Esther, but it had to “take one for the team”.). Will send a picture once all our components are combined.  We still have our doubts about the propulsion system; one can only ask so much of three rubber bands!

Port of Call: Honolulu

From 1990 to 1993, Dwight and I lived on Oahu and had a wonderful neighbor, Esther, with whom we have remained friends for more than thirty years.  Esther and Dan usually fly to The Big Island to see us when we have returned to Hawaii, so I was happy that this time it was just a trip across town.  I got the okay from Viking allowing Esther and Dan to come onboard for lunch and a tour of the ship.  It was such a great reunion!

That evening, Vann and I went to Waikiki to visit familiar landmarks and to catch some Hawaiian music and hula at the Halekulani Hotel, snagging a front row seat and an ono mai tai.  Alo-HA!

Adventurers Onboard

Viking has brought the most amazing speakers onboard, and their talks are a favorite feature of our voyage.  They keep our sea days interesting and our calendars full.

Mick Dawson is a Brit and a former Royal Marine Commando who has rowed, yes rowed, across both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  His trips, either solo or as half of a two-man team, each covered thousands of miles and required months of “two hours on, two hours off” around the clock rowing in a boat that Mick himself built.  Tales of his adventures are spellbinding.  We’ve heard two of his talks so far and can’t wait to hear more.  Google “Mick Dawson” to learn more not only about his adventures but also of his humanitarianism.

Equally incredible are the husband and wife team Lisa and Simon Thomas.  Recovering from a life-threatening accident caused the couple to take stock of their priorities and reconsider the trajectory of their lives.  Nothing to do but get on their BMW motorcycles and ride the world!  Their initial plan was to devote twelve months to the journey that wound up lasting for seventeen years and covered more than a million miles.  They crossed Africa’s Sahara Desert, they rode through the heart of the Amazon jungle.  Tales of their setbacks, adversities, and triumphs are beyond inspiring.

But telling the story of their epic journey is only part of the reason they were brought onboard; they are mostly here to give photography workshops!  And what workshops they are!  SRO crowds at their earliest presentations caused the total schedule of onboard talks to be reshuffled, moving Simon and Lisa to the ship’s largest venue.  We have just this evening left Kauai and have five sea days ahead as we make our way to Bora Bora, French Polynesia.  We should all be well-prepared to capture the colorful sights that lie before us.

Catching up

l’ve fallen behind on my blog posts.  For one thing, there is so much going on that the days go by too quickly.  And then my phone stopped communicating with my iPad, and I had no access to my photos.  No idea why that happened or how it got fixed, but now it seems that all is well and I’ll try to catch up, going back several days.

It takes five days for our ship to reach Honolulu from Los Angeles.  As always, Viking does a fine job of keeping us busy, enlightened, and fed.  I’ll cover each in a separate post, starting with the food!

We are enjoying everything about our dining experiences onboard.  There are several venues, ever-changing menus, and consistently perfect service.  It’s amazing, really.  But Viking goes a step beyond to surprise and delight with special culinary events.  One day it was a cheesecake buffet:

And another day it was the donut bar:

We’ve done a pretty good job of photographing but not sampling.  (I can’t say the same for the gelato counter however.  🫢)

For my needle-working readers.

As one who enjoys quilting and needlepoint, I’m always pleased to see stitchery exhibited as art.  The pieces shown here hang near the entrance to the Viking Sky World Cafe.  They are worked in crochet, and I find them dazzling!  If you expand the photos, you will see not only the detailed stitchery but also the array of materials used.

They are the work of the very clever Kate Jenkins of Brighton, UK.  You can see more of Kate’s whimsical, wonderful work at https://katejenkinsstudio.co.uk

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Galley Tour

Cruise ships have a reputation for harboring their steamy secrets, and the galley tour is one of them. Compact and efficient, the galley has little room for extra traffic, so galley tours are rarely advertised; you have to know about them and seek them out.  Vann and I did just that on a recent sea day.

The Viking Sky food service operation is responsible for feeding 930 passengers and a crew of 465 every day.  There are eight cafes and restaurants on board plus 24-hour room service and the crew dining room.  Here are some highlights from our tour:

Not surprisingly, the whole system is computerized.  The wait staff use handheld devices smaller than a cell phone into which they input every detail of each order.  Sauce on the side? A half portion? Hold the anchovies?  It all gets input and immediately appears on screens downstairs in the galley.

The galley is stainless steel and spotless. Traffic flows in one direction around a central core where there is an escalator that delivers servers with their trays to the dining areas above.

The room service operation is busiest at breakfast, with hundreds of meals delivered between 6:00 and 10:00am.  During that peak, room service monopolizes nearly every surface in the whole galley.

The bakery is a 24-hour operation, preparing  all the breads, pastries, sweets and desserts served onboard (with the exception of English muffins, which are purchased.)

There are eight flavors of gelato and sorbet made onboard every day…and not just your old chocolate, strawberry and vanilla!  Today’s flavors included pear sorbet, Sacher torte, hazelnut, salted caramel, and green tea.  (Coffee with fudge sauce is a favorite.)

We haven’t talked about afternoon tea, which we have only taken one time.  It’s a very civilized ritual in the Winter Garden, a charming and tranquil corner of the ship.  But, truth be told, it’s just too much food.  Gotta draw the line somewhere…and save room for gelato!

Dolphin Soup!

 From our days in Hawaii, I have come to recognize a whale’s spout, or blow.  Off our balcony this morning I spotted one that got us to our feet.  What we found, however, was that we were in “dolphin soup!”  Countless dolphins were jumping alongside our boat, while others were coming in from the sides and swimming under our bow.  The show went on for the longest time!  But they are speedy critters, and Vann’s photos show only the splashes of where they had gone back underwater.  Trust me: it was great fun to watch.

Cutest Girl in Esparza, Costa Rica

 This is our fourth sea day in a row.  I would have expected to post a message before now, but even sea days are busy days.  Time to catch up.

Our stop in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, was a short one but, as always, there was an included excursion.  They took us to the small inland town of Esparza, where there is a church with glorious stained glass windows.  In the small park in front of the church, a group of children performed for us doing traditional dances.  One of the children had an especially expressive face; I could not help but take pictures of her as she danced:

She is my souvenir of our Costa Rica visit.