At Sea

Today is April 18 and we are well over half way through the Red Sea. Yesterday we were talking with a fellow passenger when the subject of “Pirates” came up. She thought that half of the passengers were relieved and half were disappointed. We were in the half that were disappointed, not to the extreme of being hijacked and taken to Somalia, of course, but just for the unusual type of adventure some encounter may have provided and the possibility of some great photos! Speaking of photos, we were on our balcony just as we were leaving the Gulf of Aden and a Canadian military helicopter flew over the ship and then right down our port side. Our cameras were through the closed balcony door and at the other end of the cabin - no photos - we waved to the man in the open door of the helicopter and he waved back.

Heading almost due north now, the temperature is getting cooler, which is half relief and half disappointment. Tomorrow morning we will be docking in Safaga Egypt at 6:00 a.m. The forecast temperature there is 86 degrees. It will be a long day as our trip to The Valley of the Kings is scheduled for 15 hours.

That’s all for now as we need to get things ready for tomorrow - it will be an alarm clock morning.

Note from Sue: I've been having some pain problems for the last couple days and finally asked Jim to get the computer out and type this one.

Gulf of Aden

Nothing to report except a lovely day at sea. We saw many ships in the eastbound shipping lane. There is a pretty large distance between the east and west bound lanes so they are pretty far off on the horizon. We only saw one military ship and it was in the eastbound lane. I had to use my really long lens to get this picture. (you can see a tanker in the background - the military ship was passing it)

Salalah, Oman and entering the Gulf of Aden

lI don’t have much to report on Salalah as we decided not to find a car and guide to explore. It was about 97 degrees and 50% humidity… I thought it was a good place to stay in the cool ship. Different people gave different impressions of the port - some said nothing to see except Jobs Tomb which was interesting. Others that hired private cars had a great day seeing the tomb, many beautiful beaches, the city and then a ride up into the mountains overlooking the sea. They said they saw about 100 camels along the roads. Hmmm, I probably missed some good photo ops. We stayed in port until 10:00pm as the Captain had been given the location that the ship should be at at10:00 this morning. In order to maintain a fast speed and be at the right place at the right time… he delayed our departure.

This morning we are entering the Gulf of Aden. (It is 8:00 am as I write this) The Royal Navy has directed us to a certain location where we will apparently be part of a convoy of ships through the gulf. Right now there is nothing to report except that there are crew standing watch on all open decks and the bridge wings. The sonic device is mounted on the wing and we did see (and hear) them test it a couple days ago… although they just did a split second chirp with it - it was really a loud piercing tone.

Tahitian Princess went through this area 6 days ago with similar procedures and my friend emailed me that there was nothing exciting. They rarely even saw any other ships, even those that were supposed to be in the convoy. She said they did see a couple military ships, but they did not have an escort.

I’m sure the events of the last couple days have those in charge watching everything carefully. We are turning the TV to CNN or Fox quite often to get updates.

I’ll add reports if there is anything of interest!

At Sea & Happy Birthday to me

We are in the Arabian Gulf heading toward Salalah, Oman. The heightened security and watches are already in effect for the piracy threat although the area in which most of the attacks took place isn’t until after Salalah. They are utilizing all of the crew to stand watch in four hour blocks on all open decks and also on the bridge wings.

Our ‘Anti Piracy’ exercise was this morning; a five second blast on the bells and whistle and then the announcement Code Papa Code Papa. All passengers had to return to their cabins and stand in the open doorway until they were marked off by crewmembers and then remain in the cabins for further instructions. All of the crew also participated in their various assigned special duties. The entire drill was completed in less than a half hour and everyone went back to their regular activities. We have all been following the stories on CNN of the American Captain that was held by the pirates and were much relieved to see that he was finally rescued. Captain Kent, in some of his announcements, has mentioned different things about the piracy issue; my favorite comment was that these guys are not like Johnny Depp.

Happy Birthday to me! I made it another year so I guess I’ll go for another one. After the world cruise what can I do that is bigger and better??

We finally have some waves today - not rough or even moderate seas, but at least it feels like we are at sea. The whole last segment was so smooth we could have been on land except that we went 6400 miles. We have gone about 26,000 nautical miles since we left Fort Lauderdale.

Dubai, UAE

Money, Money, Money. That pretty well sums up Dubai. It is really something to see - an architect’s dream world. Twenty percent of all the tower cranes in the world are in the UAE with the most in Dubai. It has 47 shopping malls with the two biggest in the world; one includes the indoor ski hill. Our guide said that is all there is to do for the rich Arabs and others that live there. They live in their huge palaces and mansions and go shopping during the day. I think I saw more Rolls Royces, Bugates, Bentleys and any other exotic and luxury cars than anywhere.

Our tour started with Tea at the Burj Al Arab Hotel. That is the huge hotel shaped like a sail that has come to be the symbol of Dubai. We were able to take pictures throughout the parts of the hotel that we saw. Sadly I didn’t get to see any rooms; I had thought the Tea would be the last stop of the tour and I had taken my travel agent IATAN certification card hoping that I could get a tour… no such luck. Anyway, it is pretty spectacular; the cheapest small suite goes for about $2000 a night (as our guided said “without breakfast!”). There was a row of white Rolls’ parked outside to cater to the guests needs… no doubt, shopping. Tea was just tea… finger sandwiches, scones and sweets. I did love every drop of the two cups of coffee (remember, I’ve been drinking ship coffee for over two months). If you were to book this tea on your own it costs about $150 a person… not even the little paper thin piece of gold on my sweet would make it worth that, but as part of the tour it was quite an experience. We were under a dress code for this tour, long pants, no jeans and covered shoulders, no t-shirts- ok that’s fine, everyone dressed accordingly. But, obviously if you can afford to stay there no code applies; there were many very skimpily dressed women and men in shorts that were obviously guests in the hotel.

The other part of the tour was a boat ride that we thought would take us out through the islands of “The World”… nope, we cruised along and just as we could start to see those manmade islands starting to show above the waves we turned around and started back. Why would we want just a boat ride when we have all been onboard a ship for this length of time??? Everyone was a bit put out.

The best part of the tour was just driving around through the city and looking at the buildings. They are spectacular. Our driver got us to one location quite close to the tallest building in the world for photos… it took me three shots to get it all in top to bottom from that distance. It is TALL!

You can tell this wasn’t my favorite tour but I’ve wanted to see that hotel for about 8 years, now I can mark it off the list; been there - done that.