a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
After breakfast, we went on our excursion for the day: an aerial tramway tour through the Gamboan forest canopy.
At the top of the tramway― called Cerro Pelado― there is an observation tower with panoramic views of Soberania National Park, the Chagres River and the Panama Canal.
Our tour included stops at a sloth sanctuary, an orchid house and a butterfly enclosure.
Cartagena (pop. 914,500 in 2020) is a port city on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. By the sea is the walled Old Town, founded in the 16th century, with squares, cobblestone streets and colorful colonial buildings. With a tropical climate, the city is also a popular beach destination.
– Google
We spent some three hours in the Old Town of Cartagena this morning, and came away with a good impression.
Just be prepared to say no gracias many times, to the street vendors selling t-shirts, hats, bottled water and soda, souvenirs and cubanos (cigars).
The day temperature rose rapidly through the morning, and it was already 90 °F (32 °C) when our taxi driver met us to take us back to the ship.
We are still at sea, approaching Cartagena on the Caribbean Sea coast in Columbia.
It was mostly sunny today, but very breezy on the top deck— due to a 35-knot wind from the west.
A two-foot wave of water in the big swimming pool sloshed forward and backward. (The pool had a net on, closed to all of the sunseekers. A smaller pool behind it was still open).
We were barely an hour or two out of Miami (after our departure at 6 pm on Friday night), when the captain announced that one of the passengers had fallen gravely ill, and that the best option was to return to port to disembark the patient for the medical care that she needed.
After that, Friday night and all of Saturday seemed to go without any major incident.
Pictures:
The view from atop the bow of the ship on Deck 12, while backing out of the channel alongside Dodge Island, leaving the Norwegian Sky in the distance (and the fancy Royal Caribbean cruise terminal building on the left edge of the picture);
Another view from Deck 12, of the last of the condo towers before we reached the open seas;
The starboard view from the promenade deck;
The view from the promenade deck and the stern of the ship;
Sunset, around 5.30 pm (picture courtesy one of my fellow shipmates).
We stepped on board the Norwegian Sun at the cruise terminal on Dodge Island here in Miami at around 11.30 am, and will set sail at 5.30 pm.
We made the 5-hour flight into Miami International Airport.
Our scheduled departure from Seattle at 7.19 am was delayed by almost an hour, due to issues with loading the bags onto the plane.
After that it was smooth sailing*.
(*Flying, the sailing will start tomorrow).
My compadres and I are flying out to Miami in the morning, so that we can board the Norwegian Sun to set sail with us on Friday.
She will be heading to South America through the Panama Canal, and I will try to post about our whereabouts every day, of course. There will be wi-fi on the ship, but I suspect it is not going to be super-snappy and solid.
I could see my breath today (low 40s, about 5 °C outside)— a tad too cold for a long walk.
Wednesday was clear and quiet, but there was rain on Thursday morning in Seaside as we packed up and headed home to Seattle.
Pictures:
Seaside beach around noon on Wednesday | The historic Seaside Promenade is 1½ miles long and was dedicated in 1921 | Monument for Lewis and Clark, whose expedition had started in St Louis, MO, in May 1804, and ended at Fort Clatsop in Sept. 1806, nearby Seaside, to its north | A marker for an evacuation route (Seaside is only at 23′ elevation and vulnerable to tsunamis) | Approaching the drawbridge on US-101 going over Youngs River
Three amigos drove down to Seaside, Oregon today, to join two amigos that were there already.
Pictures:
There were plenty of trucks, and fog until noon on I-5 South | At the supercharger in Kelso, Washington | Weyerhaeuser Company’s sawmill at Longview on the Columbia River has been in operation since 1929 | Crossing the Lewis and Clark Bridge and the Washington-Oregon state line on the Columbia River | The marshlands near Kerry Island, Oregon | The beautiful beach at Seaside
The photographer is Francois Theron and he used a Sony NEX-3 digital camera with a 10-second exposure.
The three friends made their way back to Seattle today, taking an early 7 am flight out of Fairbanks on Alaska Airlines.
We made a brief stop in downtown Fairbanks today, and then headed to the The University of Alaska Museum of the North (the museum is on the campus of the university).
These pictures are from a four-hour roundtrip drive on Alaska Route 3 South— from Fairbanks to the Denali National Park Visitor Center.
It’s fall here in the Northern Hemisphere, and the three friends from Seattle made it out to Fairbanks, Alaska, for a long weekend.
Top to bottom: Stepping on board in Seattle; a glacier somewhere over Canada; approaching Fairbanks— and noticing fall’s colors in the woods; a bear at Fairbanks airport; the view from our rented cottage, some 15 miles outside Fairbanks.
Two two-lane bridges (Canoe Pass Bridge and Deception Pass Bridge) on Washington State Route 20, connect Whidbey Island in Island County, to Fidalgo Island in Skagit County in Washington State.
The bridges opened on July 31, 1935.
[Source: Wikipedia]
These pictures of the Canoe Pass Bridge were all taken from Pass Island, looking south. The pictures were taken around 4.15 pm. The Salish Sea is to the west, and with high tide at about 6.48 pm today, the tide from the Pacific Ocean was still coming in.
Here’s the Norwegian Bliss just leaving the pier in Seattle and setting sail for Sitka, Alaska, shortly after 5 pm this afternoon.
She will go as far as Juneau and then to Icy Straight Point 30 miles across the Alaskan Inside Passage, before turning back to Seattle.
Located in the northeast corner of the park at an elevation of 6,400 ft (1 950 m), Sunrise is Mount Rainier National Park’s highest visitor center.
It is only open from early July to early September.
The butterfly is a mariposa copper (Lycaena mariposa), and on the log is a Clark’s nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana) and a Townsend’s chipmunk (Tamias townsendii).
Happy Labor Day.
My friends and I made a round trip across Puget Sound today:
crossing with the Seattle-Bainbridge Island ferry, driving to Silverdale REI* to pick up a tent, and returning on the Bremerton-Seattle ferry.
*Outdoor recreation gear and equipment store
My friends are gearing up for hiking on Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail— and so a visit the the flagship REI store in Seattle’s South Lake Union was in order for today.
Some of the purchases: water bag and microfilter system, powdered eggs, shredded beef with beef broth in a pouch, energy bars, Mount Rainier Wonderland Trail map, waterproof compression bag (keeps clothes dry), pressure-regulated pocket-sized gas stove, isobutane fuel cartridges.
