Steve and Cathy's Blog

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

Today we rest up from such a busy day yesterday, which included a delightful evening in the Polo Grill restaurant on Deck 10.  It was Patricia Watt’s birthday (a picture of part of her birthday cake heads up this post), and we were honored to be among the eight people invited to dine with her in celebration.  Of all the people we have met on this ship, Pat definitely is one of those whose friendship we

This town, located on the Bay of Plenty 131 nautical miles south of Auckland, was so named “the resting place for canoes” by the Maori, and it is where some of the first ones arrived in New Zealand.  Captain James Cook sailed into the Bay of Plenty in 1769 and gave it its present name because of the friendly and generous reception he was given by the thriving local Maori. Overlooked by Mauao (Mount Maunganui), it

Our day in Auckland was compliments of Oceania Cruises.  There is an Around The World event that will occupy our whole day here.  We leave the ship around 10:00am and board buses for a tour of the city.  We will be dropped off at the 1,076-foot tall Sky Tower for a long lunch at the Orbit 360 Degree Dining restaurant at the 620-foot level at 12:30pm. Our tour guide is also our driver, and he is

By every measure, we are entering one of the world’s most inviting and livable cities.  We have just arrived in this magnificent harbor and already we can sense this.  Even the container port and automobile receiving pier are neat and orderly. It’s 10:00am and we are right on time. Because the itinerary had to be adjusted last-minute, there are no excursions available, plus it is Sunday. Unlike the retail-consumer-ruled United States, most of the rest of

We are tracking pretty much due east, so we will be moving the clocks ahead by one hour tonight. This is the third Sea Day in a row, so Steve is making some progress on his posts.  Today he writes the post on our first day in Bali, Indonesia and starts the second day in Bali post.  The latter (April 27th) is not an easy one, because there is a great deal that we learned about