Two to Travel Goes ...

It Runneth the Earth’s Wide Regions Round …

Saturday, 28 May 2016
Gulf Waters RV Resort — Port Aransas, Texas

The Sea — Bryan Waller Procter (1787–1874)

THE SEA! the sea! the open sea! •• The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound, •• It runneth the earth’s wide regions round;
It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies; •• Or like a cradled creature lies.

I ’m on the sea! I ’m on the sea! •• I am where I would ever be;
With the blue above, and the blue below, •• And silence wheresoe’er I go;
If a storm should come and awake the deep, •• What matter? I shall ride and sleep. …

[Click this link for the rest of the poem.]

Did you know that approximately 71% of the earth’s surface is covered with water? That’s what the USGS website says. And over 96% of that water is in the seas and oceans around the world.

We’ve been cruising since 1999 — fairly regularly since 2001. In the years since our first cruise, we’ve sailed many of the earth’s seas and oceans … with many more to be transited during our upcoming voyage.

I was curious to see if I could somehow document where we’ve been … where we will be going. The map below tells the story.

The blue stars represent the seas we’ve sailed … the red stars are those
that we will sail during the 180 days we will be aboard Insignia next year.
[base map from Wikipedia; the stars are mine … Attribution at this link.]

Even after circumnavigating the earth, there will be bodies of water we will not have touched. Methinks that might mean more cruises in the years ahead :-)

Around the World in 80 Days ... Revisited

Saturday, 21 May 2016
Gulf Waters RV Resort — Port Aransas, Texas

I gave up on buying books when we sold our sticks and bricks home and moved into the motorhome to travel fulltime. Not only do we not have space for books in the “condo on wheels,” but the weight we carry on the chassis is something we need to be aware of at all times.

I do love to read though. Sometimes I borrow from a library, but we’re not always conveniently near to one. So, a few years ago I gave in and bought an eReader … specifically a Kindle. Since then, I’ve graduated to an iPad.

What’s this preamble leading up to? Remember how I wrote about the genesis of my travel dreams? And how Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days was a key factor in those dreams? Well, a few weeks ago I found the book in an e-format on Project Gutenberg… and for free, too. What a great resource.

I just finished reading the book and enjoyed it tremendously … took me right back to my childhood when I would read under the covers after lights out :-) Of course, I needed to use a flashlight then to illuminate the pages … no need for that anymore.

Along the same lines, we don’t buy movies on DVD’s anymore either … same consideration with weight in the coach being an issue. Nor do we stream movies on a regular basis … not enough ‘bits’ in our data plan. Enter Netflix … and its DVD lending program … another great resource for us.

And that preamble leads to another find … the original David Niven movie of Around the World in 80 Days. I moved it up on the queue and we watched it last night. What fun. I did notice something that I didn’t realize when I was a child … there was quite a bit of artistic license taken in the movie. Not surprising, I guess … seems to be par for the course for any book that is brought to the big screen. No matter, I enjoyed the movie anyway.

Now to go see what other books and DVDs I can find that relate to our RTW.

Changes Afoot

Monday, 9 May 2016
Gulf Waters RV Resort — Port Aransas, Texas

Plans for the various ports on our voyage are coming along nicely. “A port a day” has been my steady pace since I settled into research mode in late March.

Alanya, Turkey was the ‘port du jour’ … the only one that Mui had agreed to take the lead on. In fact, he already had everything worked out … sightseeing locations were selected and a typical Turkish meal was to be the highlight of the day. Hah!

One of the things I like to know is how many other ships will be in port with us. So, I went to one of my go-to port schedule websites and clicked on the date we were to be in Alanya. What? No Insignia! I checked two other sites … to no avail. This could only mean one thing — the port was canceled. Yup, a quick scan of the itinerary on the O website showed that Alanya was replaced by Limassol, Cyprus. Bummer! Our only stop in Turkey gone … poof into thin air.

When did the change happen? Why did it happen? No clue. Well, the why may simply be a result of NCL Corp’s decision to remove all Turkish ports from the itineraries of the three cruise lines under its umbrella. It doesn't make sense to me, but there you have it!

We lost Sharm el Sheikh back in November — and now, Alanya. In perusing the itinerary after uncovering the Alanya change, I noted a few others … mostly having to do with arrival and departure times. None are a big deal, although the earlier departure from Benoa, Bali by two hours will impact our excursion plans for that day — especially since this port is the beginning of a new segment and there’s bound to be a muster drill before sailaway. On the upside, we are now scheduled to arrive in Safaga, Egypt an hour earlier. That’s a good thing as we can hopefully get going on our overnight trip to Luxor that much earlier. There is also a curios change that has to do with Bordeaux. The original itinerary had us sailing up the river to dock in the heart of the city. That will still happen … but later in the day as it now looks like we will be docked in Le Verdon in the morning. This could be for two reasons — tides on the river; or Le Verdon’s proximity to the Medoc wine region making it a better jumping off point for tours.

Will there be other changes in the months ahead? Most likely … and we’ll roll with the punches as they come along … we always do.

How Many Miles?

Monday, 11 April 2016
Gulf Waters RV Resort — Port Aransas, Texas

It’s my birthday today! So I gave myself a present … a day off from working on sightseeing plans for the RTW. I’ve been researching ports non-stop since we arrived at our Port Aransas base on March 26. I deserve a rest don’t you think?

During happy hour today, Mui and I were talking about our upcoming voyage. For some reason the topic keeps popping up like a jack-in-the-box … heh, heh, heh.

Anyway, the conversation turned to the number of miles we expect to travel around the world. My iPad was handy, so I asked Siri to tell me the circumference of the earth. Her response: “24,901 miles.” That’s at the equator, of course. Those miles correspond to 40,074 km. Or 21,638 nautical miles — which is the more accurate unit of measurement for us as it is the standard used at sea.

But we won’t be charting a course along the equator. Nor will we be following a straight line. So, I looked up the distance that I remembered was noted in the 2017 voyage brochure — 45,495 nautical miles are projected. Will that hold true? Highly unlikely. And in reality … the miles don’t matter … the friendships we make along the way, however, will!

Seeking the Advice of a Travel Doc

Thursday, 24 March 2016
Advanced RV Resort — Houston, Texas

Our winter road trip is over. I’m anxious to get settled in at our Port Aransas RV pad so I can dedicate some much needed attention to our RTW voyage. But before I can do that, there is something we need to take care of here in Houston. We are here for a very specific reason … to consult with a doctor at the Baylor Travel Clinic.

Exotic travel destinations sometimes come with inherent health issues. We visited a travel clinic when we went on a photo safari to Africa. With only three countries, and most of our time on that trip spent in Botswana, it was a simple matter of determining what precautions were advisable.

The RTW, with 45 or so countries on the itinerary, is far more complex. So, there was no question in our minds about seeking the counsel of a doctor well-versed in the potential health pitfalls we might encounter.

The consult started with a review of the itinerary — provided beforehand — with Dr P and his entourage, which included a nurse/assistant and a medical student. We talked about essential vaccines and prophylactics, as well as general health topics such as sunburns, mosquito bites, traveler’s diarrhea, mal de mer, and more … even discussed the potential for encounters with wildlife and cats and dogs. Terrorism, too, made it into the conversation.

By the time the discussion was over, we felt considerably more educated and had a plan to help us stay healthy during the voyage.

The consensus was that I would get the yellow fever vaccine … Mui got his shot when he was in the USAF. The doc agreed we didn’t need the Hep A vaccine since we had gotten it before our 2004 trip to Africa — good for our lifetimes. For typhoid fever, he wrote us an ℞ for an oral vaccine — good for 5 years. We opted for Malarone as a malaria prophylactic since we tolerated it well on our Africa trip. Using our itinerary as a guide, Dr P carefully counted how many Malarone pills we would each need before writing up the order. We skipped the vaccination for Japanese encephalitis, vowing to be diligent about using mosquito repellent where the disease is endemic. An ℞ for traveler’s diarrhea — antibiotics in case we need them — and a promise to get the flu shot in the fall wrapped up our visit to the clinic.

Whew, we thought to ourselves as we paid our bill and left the clinic with updated vaccination certificates! So much information to digest … and even more to read in the thick packets of information we were each given during the appointment.

Another ✔ for our RTW prep list … it sure feels good to be chipping away at it.

P.S. Adding this note in October 2016. We recently received a letter advising us that the Baylor Travel Clinic is no more. Good thing we didn’t delay getting medical advice for our travels until this fall.

It Runneth the Earth’s Wide Regions Round …

Saturday, 28 May 2016Gulf Waters RV Resort — Port Aransas, Texas