On The Road Again

 

For those of you who are wondering where our DVD from our South American trip is, we just didn’t have enough time to get the project finished. The pictures have been posted on the web, and I promise that when we return from our upcoming trip, we will work on the South American program since it was a fascinating experience.

However, it is that time again for the Globe-trotters to sail across the ocean. This time we will be joined by our good friends Bill and Jayne Davison from Great Britain. We will be meeting them next weekend in San Francisco, and boarding our ship on Monday. We will be traveling on the Crystal Serenity this time, which is a traditional cruise ship with about 900 passengers. Our journey across the South Pacific will take 22 days, and when we arrive in Sydney, we will be about 9000 miles from home.

My first thought when we considered cruising across the Pacific was that there would not be many places to stop. Boy was I wrong! Our first destination will be Honolulu where we will spend an afternoon before departing for Fanning Island which is a part of Kiribati. If you do not immediately recognize this destination, then join the club because I had never heard of it. As far as I can tell, it is a largely uninhabited atoll south of Hawaii. From there, we continue sailing to Apia, Samoa, and then off to Mystery Island in Vanuatu. We continue to Lautoka, Yasawa-I-Rara, Mare Island and Noumea, before reaching our final destination Sydney, Australia.

There will be a lot of days at sea where we will be able to relax and read--quite unlike the feverish activity involved with an expedition cruise. I should have plenty of time to write as we go along, and perhaps the mystery of where all these places are, and what they are about will be unveiled over the next several weeks.

I do want you to know that this blog constitutes the first in an experiment involving the use of dictation rather than my typing on a keyboard. Unfortunately, my fingers have developed neuropathy that is causing me to have difficulty typing. So, since I have seen so many people using dictation programs, I thought I would give it a chance. So if you notice that the verbiage or writing seems a little different, it can all be explained by my trying to learn how to dictate rather than to type.

Lisa and I wish everyone a very happy new year, and we hope you will enjoy our newest adventure together. Could I ask you to