Finally on Board the Zuiderdam

 

January 6, 2024, Saturday

Temperature is about 84 degrees. Skies are sunny, the ocean is brilliant blue, and the sea is calm.    I open with this for all our friends in colder climates to enjoy.  Sorry.  Not sorry.

 

LeRoy and Vialula welcome you and hope you will join us as we circumnavigate the big blue marble again …

Vialula already has a ton of pictures she wants to share with you, and LeRoy is already struggling with finding the best words to introduce and include you on the trip.  Please be kind and forgive me for all my incorrect words and poor syntax.   A writer I am not.   As I type this right now, Vialula is in a creative writing class which I should be taking with her.   She was an English major.   I was more of an English private.

But let’s begin because you do have to start somewhere.

 

After what seemed to be a very long parade of hustle and bustle days, right in the middle of the Christmas holiday, to get ready for and plan for this trip, our first 3 days on board were completely the opposite.  Three sea days in a row allowing for some down time, some organizing time and reacquainting with a lot of folks from our last sojourn in 2019.  It’s amazing how many faces we recognized.   Don’t remember most of the names but then soon you are right back where you left off. But on the other hand, there are a lot of newbies on board, too.  5 of the 8 people at our dinner table last night were on their first trip. I see the excitement in their faces which I guess others saw in our faces last time.   For many it is a trip of a lifetime, and we never thought we would be making a second one ourselves.  Which makes you wonder if there will be a third?  Anyone want to go with us?

The ship is beautiful.  A bit bigger than the last one so more people can go but we were surprised to find that we are not full. I thought we would be. In fact, there are about the same number going as last time and so we all benefit with having somewhat shorter lines, more availability on excursions and a staff that tends to your every need.   Amazingly, we have one room steward that we had on the last trip.  Room stewards work in pairs, and they have X amount of rooms they work.   What are the chances that Saef from Indonesia would end up being one of our stewards again.    We are so happy to have him and Nana. 

As I mentioned earlier, three days at sea.  We have been very slowly making our way down south, southeast towards Trinidad and Tobago.  That is our first stop tomorrow.   To be specific, Scarborough Tobago.  The seas have been very calm, and the breeze is wonderful.  You wouldn’t even know you were moving if it wasn’t for the gentle rocking of the boat as you watch the ocean going by.  Vialula and I were reminded of this phenomenon as it causes us to sleep like the dead.

 

Our first stop tomorrow is Trinidad and Tobago. It is a dual island nation that was first colonized by the Spanish but has Dutch, French and English backgrounds as well.  It is at the southern most end of the Caribbean and didn’t actually become independent until 1962. English is the native language but there might be some dialects that we won’t necessarily recognize. Large reserves of oil and gas makes it one of the wealthiest countries in the Caribbean.  Along with that, it is also, like many nations in the area, a major transportation or shipping point for the cocaine/drug trade so there is some drug and gang related violence which threatens the tourist trade.   Thankfully that is on the larger island of Trinidad and not so much on the small island of Tobago where we will be.   So, should we survive the stop here I will probably have some more to share with you later.

Thanks to everyone at home for their gracious send off and countless prayers and well wishes!

LeRoy & Vialula