It’s a big ship

Happy Thanksgiving 2014!

If traveling as a Peace Corp Volunteer is “roughing it” a bit much, there are other alternatives! On the opposite end of the spectrum, a vacation on a cruise ship to a tropical destination might be more your style.  The most difficult task for this type of trip is getting to the dock with your suitcase.  A ship of this size is like a floating hotel.  Once on board and your bags unpacked in your cabin, all you need is your ship charge card to take advantage of all the ship has to offer.  You can be as active or sedentary as you like.  There are scheduled activities throughout each day that you can enjoy or you can spend the day relaxing in a deck chair reading a book.  Food of all varieties is always available.  You will be well fed.

On those days when the ship is in port you have many options.  There are excursions of all varieties organized by the cruise ship.  There are excursions on the dock organized by local tourist groups.  There are private taxis on the dock that you can hire to take you to a local beach or other destinations of your choosing.  The local taxi drivers are a wealth of local information and can be a pleasant way to spend the day.  Depending on the port, you can go for a walk around the dock area or you can stay on the ship and spend the day relaxing.

Nancy and I recently “cruised” to the Caribbean aboard the Coral Princess of the Princess Line.  This vessel is 964′ long, 106′ wide and weighs 91,627 gross tons.  One segment of our journey was a partial transit of the Panama Canal to Gatun Lake.  From the Caribbean, each of the three locks that you pass through on the way to the lake is 1,000′ long and 110′ wide.  This ship and her sister ship, Island Princess, were specifically built to transit the canal.  The Panama Canal is currently undergoing an expansion with new, larger locks being constructed.  More on the expansion project later in the post.  The weather was excellent, the seas mostly calm, although a bit more moderate along the coast of South America in the Equatorial Current.  Generally, we cruised at around 18 knots.

– Port Everglades Harbor, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Our stateroom balcony.

Leaving Port Everglades harbor

First sunset south of Florida

Rain clouds over Cuba

– Aruba

Aruba is a Dutch island in the southern Caribbean with a population just over 100,000. Together with Bonaire and Curacao, they collectively are called the Netherland Antilles or the Dutch Caribbean.  Aruba has a dry climate and an arid, cactus-strewn landscape.  Driving from one end of the island to the other, it looks much like Baja California.  The original inhabitants were Arawaks who migrated from Venezuela around 1000 AD. It was later colonized by Spain for over a century beginning around 1499.  The Dutch took control after 135 years under the auspices of the Dutch East India Company.  The official native language of the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao) is Papiamento.  It is derived from African and Portuguese languages with some influences from American Indian languages, English, Dutch and Spanish.  The local people we met were very friendly.

We drove our rental car from the northwestern side to the southeast side of the island.  The northwestern beach side is the newer, touristy areas with high rise hotels and the southeastern side is the older part.  Baby Beach, pictured below, is a classic white sand, aquamarine blue water beach on the southeastern side.  The snorkeling here rivals some places we’ve been to in Hawaii and Micronesia.

Aruba harbor early am

Aruba motto: “One happy island”

West end of Aruba – Arashi Beach

East end of Aruba – Baby Beach

Great snorkeling

One happy beach goer

– Cartagena, Columbia

Also known as Cartagena de Indias, is a port city on the northern Columbian coast of around 1 million people. The city was founded in 1533 but was inhabited by indigenous peoples back to 4000 BC. During the colonial period, Cartagena served a key role in the expansion of the Spanish empire.  Much of the gold that was shipped to Spain from the New World came from this port.  Hence, it was sacked by pirates and freebooters numerous times.  Eventually a massive fortified wall and fortress was constructed here during the 17th century that kept the city safe.  It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1984.

Highrises near entrance to Cartagena Bay.

Docked.  Monastery on summit of El Popa in the distance.

Cartagena Bay – view from El Popa.

Old fortress

Old town Cartagena, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Plaza de los Coches.

Palace of the Inquisition.

Parrot and spider monkey sanctuary.

Parrot and spider monkey sanctuary.

Many metal sculptures around the old town’s plazas.

– Panama Canal

Opened in 1914.  Currently undergoing a new lock expansion project.  Projected completion expected by early 2016.  A new 6.1 kilometer Pacific Access Channel will run almost parallel to the current Canal channel.  One of the new lock doors, transited the Gatun locks the same time we did.  The new locks will be 1400′ long and 180′ wide and will allow the bigger post-Panamax freighters to transit.

Entering Gatun locks from the Caribbean.

Entering the first lock.  One of the new lock gates is transiting the canal on the left side of the picture.  The new gates on the Pacific side of the canal are 33 meters tall and weigh 4,232 tons.  On the Atlantic side, the new gates are 29 meters tall and weigh 3,319 tons.  All of the new gates are 57.6 meters wide and will slide open like pocket doors.  The existing miter gates swing open.  The total estimate of the canal expansion is currently 5.3 billion dollars.

The ship is pulled through the locks with locomotive “mules”.

 

Gatun lock control tower.

Third Gatun lock – Gatun Lake in the distance.

Panama Canal Railway completed 1855.

First Transcontinental Railway.

In 1866, the Gibson Family, Nancy’s ancestors, moved from the east coast to California and traveled on the Panama Canal Railway.  We rode on a restored version of this train from Colon to Panama City during our day in Gatun Lake.

Our mother ship, the Coral Princess in Gatun Lake.

– Limon, Costa Rica

Uvitas Island.  Just off shore from the Port of Limon.  Columbus docked on the left side of the island in 1502 and sent some of his crew ashore.  They named the region “Costa Rica” (rich coast), stayed about a month and sailed on.  The Parque National Torteguero covers much of this region.  We took an excursion to the Torteguero Canals, “the Amazon of Costa Rica”.

A nice casita along the road to the Torteguero.

Torteguero Canal waterway.

Jesus Christ lizard.   They have the ability to run across a water surface.

Poison Dart frog.

– Grand Cayman

One of three Cayman Islands, Grand Cayman is a British Overseas Territory.   It’s economy is based on off-shore banking, with over 600 banks, and tourism.   The Cayman Islands were dependencies of Jamaica until 1962, when Jamaica became independent.  The Caymans decided to stick with the British, but many Jamaicans live and work on the Caymans now.  The population of the island is around 50,000.  It’s an expensive island to visit and to live here but if you are a resident you do not pay any taxes.  So many British expats were living here and getting residency that the island sent all of the non-residents off the island for a day so that they would have to wait another 5 years to claim residency.

Bicycle ride to Grand Cayman Turtle Farm.

A green sea turtle hatchery and aquatic center.

– Florida Everglades

We had 8 hours to kill before our plane departed so we went to the Everglades for the morning.  It rained hard for a  couple of hours but we did find one alligator that let us take a few pictures before swimming off.

It was a great trip.