Russ and Jan's World Cruise

Saturday, January 7, 2023

Cabo San Lucas, Thursday, January 5, 2023

Thursday, January 5, 2023

Cabo San Lucas

We pulled into the bay this morning around 9:00 a.m. Once at anchor, staff started launching lifeboats. That sounds ominous, actually a very positive thing. Many cruise lines hire local tenders in ports where they must anchor and not be moored to a dock. Viking has opted to use their own lifeboats as tenders and utilize their own highly trained staff for operating these tenders. They do a tremendous job!

What seems like it should be a fairly simple operation, there are some complications. The tender is impacted by the swells and bobs up and down next to the ship while passengers’ step from the ship to the tender. But the tender is moving up and down by at least a couple of feet. The staff assist the passengers by talking them through the process. (i.e. “get ready”, “don’t step now”, “Big step NOW”) and also holding on to the passenger while they follow instructions. Keep in mind that many of these passengers have major mobility challenges. Staff takes it in stride and know exactly how to assist. And always with a smile.

Inside the Tender. Without utilizing every seat available, there were probably 60 or so people in the Tender

Our tour was to start at 1:00 for a 2-hour whale watching excursion. We made it precisely on time and were led to a large catamaran. We found seats towards the front and settled in. Part of the excursion was an open bar. We each enjoyed a beverage, although we could have requested more throughout the journey, one was enough. About 1:30 we pulled away from the dock and headed out of the harbor and towards the iconic view of The Arch. It was an absolutely beautiful day. Bright and sunny with air temperature around 75 F.

After a few minutes hanging around the arch allowing for a photo op, we headed on out around Land’s End and into the Pacific in search of Whales. It didn’t take long, and we were following a humpback as it “blew”, surfaced and disappeared for a few minutes, just to do it all over again. One of those surfaces was right next to our boat. WOW! After a while, we saw the whale’s flukes (tail) and down it went. It was doing a deep dive. We knew it would be a while before it came back up, but continued on the same heading. Then we saw a couple more whales off to the left. One was breaching. So cool! Then there were 3 whales. The guide believed the one we had initially been following, had joined with the other 2. In many of the photos, we were far enough away that I’ve had to crop down the photos to show the whale so they are pretty grainy. But we’ve got our memories. Our time was up, so we headed back towards Cabo. Another photo op of The Arch, this time from the Pacific side.

Spouts from a couple of whales.

2 Humpback Whales

Fluke

Breach

From a friend on the boat with us. A much better photographer.

In the background you can see a new golf course going in on the cliffside.

All in all, a great afternoon.

Thursday, January 5, 2023

Sea Days

Wednesday, January 4, 2023

We are just completing 4 continuous days “at sea”. What happens on sea days? For us, we are up at our usual time somewhere around 5:30 a.m. Sometimes we fix a cup of coffee in the room, sometimes we go up to the World Café where they have a nifty coffee machine that you can access 24/7. You have many choices of just how you want your coffee or tea. If we do go up to the World Café, we typically opt for a latte.

Then we do our morning stretches on the floor of the cabin. There isn’t a lot of room, but enough to get the job done. We try to get a walk around the walking track on deck 2 where one lap is equal to ¼ mile. We are trying to increase our number of laps, but it is often dependent on how much roll we are picking up from the seas.

For the last several days, we have had absolutely beautiful sailing weather. The seas have been calm with mostly clear skies. The seas were often almost glassy.

One evening, we dined at the Chef’s Table. It was the “Mexican” menu. 3 out of the 5 courses were underwhelming. The kitchen here does a great job with Asian spices frequently with a fair amount of heat. The Mexican dishes seem to be bland. The mole with short rib was very good and the dessert exceptional. Some of the best chocolate we’ve ever had.

We said goodbye to our Christmas decorations, and placed a new decoration on our door. Since we’ll be visiting Hawaii and then Polynesia during January, the tropical flowers seemed appropriate.

We also watched a beautiful sunrise this morning from pitch dark to the sun rising out of the sea. We were just off the shore of Manzanillo, Mexico and were close enough to see the mountains.

Then we finished out the day with a beautiful moonrise. I think we are just one day away from a full moon.

Tomorrow we are due into Cabo San Lucas and are looking forward to hopefully seeing some whales.

Sunday, January 1, 2023

End of a year

December 31^st, 2022

The end of a year. What a way to finish out this year. As we sailed into the Gulf of Nicoya this morning, we had a beautiful sunrise.

We elected an optional excursion for today. We will be going to the Natuwa Animal Sanctuary and rehabilitation center in the afternoon. So, we had a quiet morning.

The tour began about 1:30 with a bus ride of a little over an hour. Once at the sanctuary, we met the co-founder and then continued on a walking tour of the exhibits. This is a rehabilitation center. I use the term “animal” as an all-inclusive term for the many different types of critters we saw. Any animal taken in is evaluated with the intent of releasing them back into the wild. Many cannot be released and are housed for educational purposes.

Some of the photos will show animals in cages. These are large enclosures that give the animals as much space as possible. There are two jaguars in residence. As their needs require, the enclosures will be enlarged to provide them with more space. Example: There are two large aviaries for 2 different species of macaws. They are shaped like a very large “O”s so the birds can fly unimpeded around and around. There are other smaller aviaries for other species.

We also saw macaws and monkeys that had been released but have chosen to hang around. We saw numerous two-toed sloth. They are in an enclosure, but their movements are not restricted. The sloth enclosures protect these animals from humans. We were there mid-afternoon and feeding time was to be shortly after we left, so the animals were fairly active. If we had been there in the morning, things would probably have been much quieter.

One of the better tours we have been on, and not just this trip. Great guide, seeing the number of animals, variety of information, value for the dollar.

After returning to the ship, we pretty much headed straight to dinner, then joined friends in the Explorer’s Lounge for an after-dinner toddy. Viking is putting on a party tonight to celebrate the New Year. There will be Dancing Under The Stars on the Pool Deck starting at 9:30. We’ll be asleep by then.

Happy New Year everyone!

Several Two-toed sloth. They sack out in the crook between branch and trunk,

Two-toed Sloth

Another one hanging on tight. They blend in with the trees and are very hard to spot. And since they rarely move, you have to look very closely.

A beautiful Macaw up in the trees. Posing for us in a bit of sun. This is one that has been rehabilitated and released. But chooses to stay

A couple of howler monkeys. The second photo is quite grainy as I had to play with the lighting to see the face. The troupe kept track of us and were constantly chattering at us and also expressed their feelings by trying to piss on us.