Steve and Cathy's Blog

We arrive in Papeete early because it’s the end of the segment that began in Sydney, Australia. We have traveled 5,120 nautical miles since then and have made seven stops.   Papeete is the capital of French Polynesia and is the economic and political center of the 118 islands that make up what is described as a “collectivity” of France.  As such, it is a tightly packed urban area and, frankly, not all that attractive.  We

Dawn breaks around 6:30am, and we begin our day with a glimpse of Mount Otemanu, one of the two extinct volcanoes that rise up in the middle of Bora Bora.  What a sight that is, from any angle and from any vantage point around the island.  Today our excursion is Sail Bora Bora by Catamaran, and it starts at 8:30am, so we will have ample opportunities to photograph this famous landmark. We tender into Vaitape and

Our ship enters the lagoon at noon through the manmade Channel of Teavanui in the reef that surrounds Bora Bora. Of all the places we have been, this and Papeete are the only two destinations outside the United States that we have been to previously.  And this time, we are arriving by sea, which is much preferable.  We have been watching iconic Mount Otemanu and Mount Pahia for at least an hour, and our anticipation builds

We looked at our daily Oceania Cruises Currents  that lists all the activities and so forth that took place on those days, and we did not find one single thing that we attended, and our memory concerning how we occupied our time on these two days is blank. We did see an interesting cloud formation and took a picture of that which is the photo that heads up this post. Cathy had a very tasty dessert

All our lives, just hearing the name “Pago Pago” sounded exotic and far away.  And here we are, actually inPago Pago.  The first thing we learned, however, is that it is pronounced Pango Pango, and the second thing is that most of the people living there pronounce this territory as American Sam’oa, with the emphasis on the first syllable.  The American influence is limited, though.  There is a National Park here, and American Samoa is administered

We are heading for Pago Pago but won’t be there until tomorrow … but it will be today when we get there!  We are crossing the International Date line between 3:00pm and 4:00pm today, and we will have an opportunity to have another May 23rd tomorrow.  Today is May 23 #1.  Oceania Cruises provides a nice explanation on the front page of today’s Currents that heads up this post. The more Sea Days we have, it

For the next three days, we will be at sea heading northeast through the South Pacific Ocean.  We will travel from 41 degrees South latitude, the farthest south of our entire around the world journey, to 21 degrees South latitude to the island of Tonga. May 19thand part of May 20th, we are traveling up the New Zealand coast. After that we are very much out to sea. Saturday the 19thwe spend the morning in Horizons,

We are still at sea when we awaken and observe yet another beautiful sunrise. And we never tire of taking pictures of them: We are due in Picton at 10:00am, but we are still at sea at 7:00 when we take these photos.  In another hour, we begin sailing up Queen Charlotte Sound, one of the four Marlborough Sounds in the northeast corner of the South Island.  Picton is at the head of this 14-mile sound,

Insignia arrives in Napier right on time at 8:00am after a stunning sunrise. It’s quite a busy port – the 4thbusiest in the country, we find out later.  And we see more logs … lots and lots more logs, as well as the same Maersk container ship we had seen in Tauranga a couple of days ago (Cathy says Steve is the only personon the ship who would notice that).  Our excursion, Art Deco Highlights of