Day 66, 12.12.2018 , White Bay, Sydney Harbour Arrived. Sailed by the iconic Opera House and under the Harbour Bridge. 230 years ago, the First Fleet arrived in Australia with 1,500 scoundrels, ruffians and ne’er-do-wells, taking 252 days to get here. Voyages have got quicker. It was slow processing by Immigration and Customs in White …
Day 62, 8.12.2018 , Noumea, New Caledonia We arrived in Noumea yesterday evening and I’m told the port entry came close to being abandoned due to high winds. H and I scuttled ashore intending to have a night in a hotel and as it was going to be a suite with a kitchen we bought …
Continue reading “New Caledonia, Nothing Like Old Caledonia”
Day 60, 6.12.2018 , Port Vila, Vanuatu The weather has not been so nice today. It was warm but cloudy and rainy. We came to Port Vila, and the island of Efate, 10 years ago. Looking back at my old blogs, we did a lot here but we had much more time to play with …
Day 58, 4.12.2018 , Lautoka, Fiji. We have been to these islands before. Fiji is very nice in places but not here. Lautoka is a sugar cane processing town and port on the west side of the big island of Viti Levu. It’s a bit industrial and rough around the edges. H had to stay …
Day 56, 2.12.2018 , Apia, Samoa We took a taxi to explore this steamy island. First stop was Robert Louis Stevenson’s former home just outside Apia at Vailima. He lived here for the last four years of his life. An interesting tour. H liked the gift shop and bought me paperbacks of Treasure Island and Dr …
Day 53, 28.11.2018 , Vaitape, Bora Bora. So good they named it twice. We had a very early wake-up due to H having to have a conference call at a time convenient for Germany but we did get to see the sunrise lighting up Bora Bora as we approached the pass through the reef . …
Day 51, 26.11.2018 , Pape’ete, Tahiti We arrived in Pape’ete a day earlier than planned. The weather was steamy and tropical with low cloud over the mountain tops. H had recently been attempting to arrange an event for the ship’s crew in the Tahiti Pearl Beach Resort but misjudged how much interest hotel and catering …
Day 45, 20.11.2018 , Hanga Roa, Easter Island I was a bit sceptical at first about the need for local pilots for each tender boat but the Hanga Roa harbour approach was just jagged rocks and surf so maybe a local guide was not such a bad idea. H stayed aboard and I went for …
Day 40, 15.11.2018 , Cumberland Bay, Isla Róbinson Crusoe, Juan Fernández Islands, Chile. Isla Róbinson Crusoe, then known as Más a Tierra, was the not-entirely-voluntary home to the marooned Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk from 1704 to 1709. Robinson Crusoe is a fictional character by novelist Daniel Defoe but is believed to be mainly inspired by Selkirk. …
Day 37, 12.11.2018, Santiago de Chile. Sonja’s flight arrived from Heathrow an hour and a quarter late but that didn’t count as something going wrong as I was in a hotel just across the street and knew it was delayed. I had to wave a name-card with the hundred’s of other meeters and greeters for …
Day 36, 11.11.2018, Puerto Montt and Santiago, Chile. November 11th is a strange day when you live in the gap between the British Empire and a Unified Germany. The day from a churchy point of view is St Martin’s Day. In Germany this always involves an unfortunate goose being invited for dinner. At the 11th …
Day 34, 09.11.2018, Amalia Glacier and Torres del Paine NP, Chile, We had the morning weaving through very complicated mountainous islands and fjords. It’s a big landscape with no sign of human habitation anywhere. It must be really nasty in the winter. The last few miles to the glacier saw lots of mini-icebergs in the …