Long Beach

Hi again. I’ve been having trouble with the blog with either the wireless service being down on the ship (for 3-4 days) or posting the pictures when I have had access. The connection , when working, is slower than dial up and with a rate of 50 cents per minute seems to stretch on forever with very little becoming accomplished at the end of my efforts. I’ll keep trying so bear with me, please.
In the meantime: Yesterday we were in Cabo Saint Lucas the second of our Mexican stops. ”Cabo” as it is called in the US is a city located at the southern tip of the Baja peninsula and is quickly becoming a high end holiday destination with a number of resorts and timeshare clubs appearing along the coast between San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo. Sandy took Cooking lessons from a chef at one of the hotels and received her certificate as an expert Mexican cook. Along with about twenty fellow travelers she ground roasted garlic, roasted onions, roasted green tomatoes and jalepenos using a mortar and pestle made out of volcanic rock. The group prepared their own lunch and Sandy declared it a feast indeed. Delicious was her exact quote.
In the meantime I left the port on a catamaran to snorkel . Several miles up the coast we dropped anchor and donned fins and mask and snorkel. You entered the water by jumping overboard or by a ladder extended into the water from the middle of the boat. I, of course, jumped and the water was chilly but refreshing . I swam away from the boat and commenced my snorkeling. My vision was blurry but I could make out the colors and the forms of fishes all around me. I wished that my glasses could fit under the mask. I surfaced and looked back at the boat some twenty yards away and one of the crew members was yelling Senor, Senor and pointing to the top of his head. I realized that my mask was firmly on the top of my head and not over my face where it belonged. What a difference a mask makes! Everything sparkled and the coral was wonderful. I fell in with a school of fish and swam with them moving back and forth. Underneath my chest was a beautiful yellow and purple striped fish that followed me for a very long time. I was wondering if I looked like lunch to him. After 45 minutes or so we boarded the catamaran to head back to port. Along the way we saw 15 to 20 whales right alongside the boat. The first sighting was by a woman who yelled “It’s so big” and just as we turned to see what she was referring to up popped the huge mother whale many, many times larger. The captain then chased after the humpback whales over the next half hour or so and some were so close to the boat you could have easily thrown a ball and hit them. Another wonderful memory.
The day before at Puerto Vallarta Sandy and I joined a tour by boat to a destination on a wonderful cove on a remote part of the area that famous director John Houston once owned. W e had a Mexican buffet with lots of choices and variety. There was snorkeling and kayaking and nature hikes and was a great way to spend a day. The waters are a mixture of darkest blues to turquoise and are beautiful and so, so tropical. The weather has been in the eighties and sunny and I have pictures to show it if I can just upload them. Puerto Vallarta is situated on the Pacific Ocean’s Baja de Banderas and its proximity to the bay brings together the agricultural valley of the Ameca river and the important mining centers in he Sierra and makes the port on of the more interesting tourist destinations. However, Puerto Vallarta was a thriving Mexican village long before it became an international tourist destination.
As I write this we are getting close to American waters and will dock in Los Angeles in the morning. We lose a lot of passengers but pick up an equal amount as the cruise is sold out. Even before I have had the chance to introduce out table companions we will lose three (we think) and pick up new folks. I’ll get to all in time I promise.
In the meantime here is a bit of the gossip on board: There is a fine dry cleaning and laundry on board but they do not do regular laundry. Each deck on board has their own launderette with three washers and three dryers and an iron and ironing board in each. Imagine the different nationalities gathered together to wait on available washers, dryers and irons. It’s not pretty and extremely tense in some situations. People open dryers to check how far along the process is and when confronted with wet clothes close the dryer and forget to start it again so the poor soul that comes back after 50 minutes finds a dryer full of wet clothes and starts again. This in turn backs up the folks whose washing is done and are now waiting for the dryers and that leads to people taking out wet clothes and putting them in a basket (or somewhere) and putting their own clothes in. You just about have to take a guard position and defend your machines. Now imagine the ironing, the washing, the drying, the tension, the dirty looks, the different languages, the positioning for the next available machine all going on in the smallest room imaginable. It’s not pretty but it is pretty interesting. The gossip: On the Queen Mary last year there were two incidents that passengers at the time swear are true. A British woman was doing her laundry and being British ironing everything including her gown. She took a break and returned to her cabin for a while and when she went back to the launderette her gown was missing. That led to lots of confusion but no gown. The next night at a ball she saw her gown on a woman dancing. She approached her and said “that is my gown!” and the woman looked at her and replied “prove it!”. I’m not sure how it ended but everyone has a theory of how they would have handled it. The second story was that the launderette was full and people waiting for the washer or dryer or iron when a battle broke out between two women and get ready for this: one hit the other in the head with the iron! Blood went everywhere because of the head wound – the captain broadcast an appeal for blood over the intercom and the woman and their husbands were put off the ship in the next port (Rio). I didn’t hear whether charges were filed or not. Now I’m not sure if these rumors are true but it makes sailing a bit more interesting.