Regatta #3 2016

 5/23/24

Hello again, Ahh....leaving San Francisco under the Golden Gate. Never sailed under the gate in my own boat even though we went by a couple times. And earlier that morning our ship did but it was dark and nothing to see. So we joined the party up by the pool. The first few photos are self explanatory. At the party a couple of the entertainers came up to us and introduced themselves, Daniel and Margaret, and welcomed us aboard. Well....we informed them that we'd been around a while and to show some respect!! We all laughed about it and they vowed to remember us from now on....and they did. We became friends with Daniel especially. Did I mention that he's a 22 year old cutie of Mexican decent? And quite talented. We enjoyed seeing him and the rest of the small group of singer/dancer entertainers that performed together and sometimes solo all through the cruise. They were very good and told us that they felt that they had a special group as they all "got on" (per the Brit, Adam) so well. I've photos of them later. 

 The waiter pictured was very funny and one of our favorites. Robert? Joyce help me out here. Anyway, he called himself "two for one" which is the happy hour deal, of course. He always had the biggest smile. He only stayed on until New York and we missed him during the last "cruise". The sail away from San Francisco was sunny and nice but soon after going under the "gate" it cooled way off. There weren't many people on deck, just us diehards. Joyce started up a conversation with a man at the bar who was ordering a couple drinks. I joined in their conversation and the three of us had quite the banter going. Funny guy. We learned his name was Don and that the other drink was for his wife Susan. I'm sure she was wondering where Don had made off to and was gone so long. We had, in fact, two conversations because once we said our first goodbyes and told him how much we were looking forward to meeing Susan we three ran into each other again, within minutes, viewing a chart of where we were headed down the coast of Mexico. I noticed that they had charted Manzanillo as Juatulco which was way off. Juatulco is a long way South of Acapulco and Manzanillo is North. See, the captain does need my help!! So we had another go around with Don who had the nerve to somewhat doubt that we knew what we were talking about. Well.....we ran into Don everywhere and always. We got to know he and Susan quite well and grew very fond of these two wonderful people. More to come about times spent with them. So, it's a couple days down to Cabo San Lucas. Mind you, it's hurricane season and we were watching nasty weather forming off the coast of Mexico like hurricanes often do. It was humid and hot and it felt like it should rain. You could see the humidity in the air. 

At Cabo we took a bus trip up to San Jose del Cabo, which is about twenty miles West. I'd sailed by it but never visited. It's more like being in Mexico than Cabo which is extremely commercialized. The tour included seeing a Huichol Indian doing the bead work they are so famous for. Also visiting the church and town square.  After the tour we walked back to the ship around the Cabo harbor with a stop for a Margarita of course. We were looking forward to Jualtulco in a couple days as it's so much more authentically Mexican. 

 Well, the storm that had been sitting off the coast down towards Acapulco was still there and not doing much. We headed that way. The second night we went through it just as it was upgraded to a named hurricane, Newton. Quite the wild ride but at least it was at night and reports were than no one got hurt by falling which could well have happened. We were near the stern of the boat and it was pretty rolly back there but the folks on the bow really had it bad. Our friends Don and Susan were in a cabin right in the middle of the bow just under the bridge. Their deck door leaked water and they pitched like crazy....not a fun time for them. 

Newton went on to smash up Cabo quite badly and even made it's way up through Arizonia...bad Newton. But the good news was that we were on schedule to arrive in Jualtulco on time and the weather was fine. So we're about nine hours from our arrival in a place that we had big plans and were really antcipating since we'd been there together years ago and knew how much we liked it. And the Captain decides to turn the ship around and go five hours, one way, back to Acapulco to offload someone who had a heart attack. Really? I didn't know they ever did that. It was only a few hours more to our scheduled stop. We've seen people airlifted off but to go ten hours out of your way and miss a port is a new one. They do have medical facilities on board....and doctors. And it's sorta what you sign up for when you go on a cruise and everyone is OLD, right? 

 So the picture of the city in the dark is Acapulco at 3am. We skipped Hualtulco. Hope whoever it was appreciated and needed the care they received. Lots of folks were not happy and then it got worse. Our next stop was Nicaragua. We were super looking forward to that stop. Never been, we had a great tour all lined up, the weather was beautiful and the Captain decided it was too rough to tender ashore. Now look at the picture of the ship with the tenders at the side. Is that rough? He put the ship directly sideways to the swell and, sure enough, the platorm that they use for loading did dip into the ocean. But you don't turn the ship sideways into the swell....you put the bow into the swell. It was flat as a pancake and I know because I could see very well. And I've been on other ships that the conditons were far worse and the Captain made it work. So, San Juan del Sur with the statue on the hill was skipped. People were gett ng a bit restless at this point. They had a comedian on board (who happened to be the cruise director's husband) that made some great jokes about the cruise to nowhere. Did I mention that this Captain was brand new....it was his first time as Captain....I think he was a little bit wussy. We got rid of him in New York and got a really fun guy instead. 

One person that was really upset about missing Nicaragua was Trixie Anders who is a volcano expert, has a PHD in geology and is a Mt. St. Helens survivor. She needed her volcano fix and was scheduled to see one there. She and her husband, John, were on board the entire time Joyce and I were and we had quite a few very interesting conversations. We agreed politically and we also learned a lot about geology, volcanos and life from these two. Both very intelligent and adventuresome. John was almost eighty and walked with a cane but often those two were seen dancing to one band or another. He danced with a cane as well. They were a class act and I'm kicking myself for not taking a photo. 

Trixie gave two presentatons about her Mt. St. Helens experience, which were scary and sad. She lost her best friend that awful day. 

 So next is Puntarenes, Costa Rica. They have a pier thank goodness. And another volcano for Trixie. Stay tuned. Gayle