23 Jan 09

1-20-09
Sandy and I celebrated the inauguration on board the Queen Victoria off the coast of Honduras. We settled in the pub and watched via CNN. Our audience was made up of Brits, Australians and of course Americans. There were great cheers for politicians and family members as they appeared on screen. One of the biggest cheers was for Sen. Ted Kennedy with widespread approval of all in the Pub (a pub of course). Each appearance by President Obama caused cheers and loud clapping. When the Bush folks were shown they were greeted with silence and a bit of booing when Cheney was shown in his wheel chair. Everyone stood for the National Anthem and some sang along. Everyone loved and laughed at the Benediction of Rev Lowery and his black don’t get back, if your brown stay around, if your red get ahead and if your white do right. There were three African-American women sitting beside us and all teared up from time to time as did Sandy and I. A woman passed out Obama – progress buttons with a red, white and blue background and a likeness of Obama. We each received one and proudly wore them. Early on a couple of crew came in to hang red, white and blue bunting and pennants. It was a very festive event and a memory to last forever. Just when the President was to take the oath of office the Captain came on the intercom for his daily report and preempted the coverage on CNN. There was an immediate protest and boos that grew even larger when the first mate came on to report the navigation details for the next day (We arrive in Guatemala) however the reports were over and we joined half way through the oath taking. The spirit on board ship of passengers and crew alike was of hope and optimism. We dined in the Brittania room and headed back to our cabin to resume watching the parade. While waiting for the elevator a woman saw our buttons came close to look again and pronounced her disgust and said “He is ruining our country as we know it” and I asked her if she had been paying attention the last few years and had she noticed we were in one of the worst depressions of our country? She replied it was all the democrats. The elevator arrived and we three boarded. There was an English couple already on board. We arrived at the sixth level (our stop) and the woman said “I will never follow that n*****” and she stormed off the elevator and took to the stairs. The English couple saddened and said that it was a shame that there were still people in the world like her. It really hurt and shocked me and took some joy of the day from my heart. I’ll focus on the fact that I believe this is the best political day of my life (followed closely by the Reagan inaugurations) and is our best hope going forward. As I’m writing this the news is coming across that Sen. Kennedy and Sen. Byrd had medical problems and we are waiting for further details.
I’ve been remiss in my blog and will try to catch up a bit here. Since our last blog we visited Curacao in the Netherland Antilles. Curacao is one of the ABC islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao and is off the coast of Venezuela. We docked at Willemstad the colorful capital. Curacao played an instrumental part of the slave trade and was made the center by the Dutch West India country in 1662. Dutch merchants brought slaves from Africa to the trading are called Asiento. From there slaves were sold and shipped to various destinations in South America and the Caribbean. Slavery was abolished by the Dutch in 1863. We took a tour of the northern end of the island and visited former slave quarters, spectacular ocean coves and beaches. The island is colorful and the houses are many different colors. The architecture is primarily Dutch. I’ll attach a few pictures.

After Curacao we traveled west to the Panama Canal. It took from 7:20 AM to past 5 in the afternoon to transit the canal. The canal is actually three locks connecting to two large lakes. Going from the Atlantic to the Pacific the red on right rule for buoys is in effect. People turned out to see the “Queen” progress. This has happened along the way with crowds coming to see the ship. I had no idea that the Cunard lines had such a huge following. Back to the canal: the ship fits into the locks by inches and requires four locomotives (mules) to guide her through.
The country is beautiful and Panama City seems to rival Miami’s skyline something I wasn’t expecting. Our guide by intercom said that lots of people were retiring here.

We’ve seen dolphins, flying fish, brown boobies and lots of marine and bird life. We have settled in more and more and I’ll get back to fellow passengers in the near future. The ships wireless network has been down for the past few days so I have had to wait to post this.