Steve and Cathy's Blog

Our excursion today is Famous North Shore, a 7-hour trip around the island of Oahu, especially along the shore area with the beaches that have the huge waves that draw surfers from around the world.  We will cover many miles, so it is fortunate that there is a tourist board person on board the ship.  We stop by his desk on our way out and pick up a map, an indispensable part of enjoying the trip.  

We have arrived back in the U S of A after 155 days away.  Truth be told, it feels good to be back in familiar surroundings, even if those familiar surroundings are the exotic and unique State of Hawaii located 2,045 miles from the continental United States. Our original itinerary called for our first port in Hawaii to be Hilo on the “Big Island,” Hawaii, but the Kilauea volcano had other ideas and has been erupting

The seas continue to churn.  10-foot waves out of the northeast as we are headed northwest.  Means the ship pitches and rolls.  Now granted this is not exactly the Perfect Storm, but it is enough to make things unpleasant.  It puts Horizons on Deck 10 and Insignia Lounge on Deck 5 off limits for both of us as they are in the bow of Insignia.  Cathy starts taking seasick meds, Steve thinks he has his sea

Today the Pacific Ocean is not our best friend.  Explorer Ferdinand Magellan was the one who named this ocean Pacificabecause he was becalmed here, but this biggest of all of Earth’s oceans can prove that Magellan was mistaken any time it wants. Today is one of those days.  We are experiencing 10-foot waves and sheets of rain.  Later in the day the captain announces that this will keep up for another 24 hours and therefore we

During the night, between 2:00 and 3:00am, Insignia crosses the Equator.  This is the sixth time we have crossed the Equator since we began the trip: enroute to Fortaleza, Brazil, enroute to Togo in Africa, back down the west coast to Africa toward Namibia, between the Seychelles and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, enroute to Bali, and today enroute to Hawaii.  Each time we have done so, we have received a certificate from Oceania Cruises

This is the first of four straight Sea Days.  Time to catch up again, or at least try.  We did not do much, but we did listen to a lecture by Phil Smart about “Tsunamis in the Pacific” which was very interesting. One of the takeaways on this voyage is certainly how much geology we have learned.  Peter Croyle has spent a good deal of time on it as part of his lectures on human migrations

Anyone who knows us at all well is aware of our shared love of islands.  Each one is distinct from all the others, not just geographically but, more important, culturally.  There are some that just seem to have developed a way of life, a mindset among its inhabitants that really appeals to us.  Nuku Hiva is one of those. Insignia anchors in a beautiful bay on the south side of this island of 131 square miles

Another Sea Day, which means another opportunity to catch up on: sleep (although we do pretty well in that department), Cathy’s latest needlepoint project (it’s a special one just for ATW guests), and the blog (today I finish Auckland NZ day 2 and make great progress on Tauranga NZ, both of which are long posts).   We have had five straight port days in some of the most beautiful places on the planet, so we are ready

If you take a look at the map that heads up this post, you see that Rangiroa is better described as an atoll rather than your typical island.  In fact, it is the second largest atoll in the world, with a length of almost fifty miles and a width of sixteen miles.  There are two small towns on two small islets with a total population of around 2,500. This atoll consists of 415 motus, islets and

The island of Ra’iatea is the second largest of the Society Islands at 65 square miles, is considered to be the most sacred island in the entire South Pacific, and was originally named Havai’i.  There is strong evidence that the Polynesian explorers that settled Hawaii, New Zealand and other parts of East Polynesia launched their ships from Ra’iatea. But is almost entirely rural, with a population of around 5,000.  There is some tourist traffic, but the