Doug's Photos

Sunday, January 28, 2024

Manzanillo

Our next stop was in Manzanillo. We pulled into port early in the morning while it was still dark.

For this stop we booked an excursion with the cruise line which would take us by bus to a number of stops. The first stop was a salt manufacturing site.

Our next stop was a brick manufacturing site. In the picture below you can see that ad hoc kilns they build from previously fired bricks, to fire new bricks. I'm not sure how constant the temperature is for these kilns and I'd be hesitant to use them for building a house to live in.

Our last stop for the day was lunch in El Pariso, Spanish for The Paradise. Although it may have been paradise years ago, these days it looks a bit storm battered. Some of the buildings down the way from the restaurant were closed and half of their foundation was missing. Still, the weather was sunny and the day fairly nice, so the surf was still a safe distance from the table where were ate.

And of course, to commemorate our day in Paradise, we had to take a picture of us with the sign.

Back to the ship, we walked around the nearby port a bit before returning to the ship. The sailfish in the photo below is the most famous sculpture. But the foreground shows a row of Zodiac Sculptures done by Sebastián, one for each sign of the zodiac.

Swordfish and Signs of the Zodiac Sculptures

And of course we had to take a picture of ourselves in front of the Manzanillo sign. This view, by the way, is rare to find. Why? Because it was difficult to get a picture of just ourselves with the sign, there were so many others taking selfies in front of the sign. So what we did instead was go around to the back of the sign and take a selfie. This actually resulted in a mirror image of the sign which I corrected by editing the picture to make it a mirror image of the original picture. I think it turned out really nicely and it's something I'll keep in mind for future photos.

Click this link or one of the pictures above to see more pictures in the Manzanillo photo album.

Saturday, January 27, 2024

Puerto Vallarta

We arrived at the port in Puerto Vallarta early in the morning, close to sunrise. It was an interesting port, maybe one of the few in the world where you can see super yachts, with a helicopter no less, parked across the street from a Walmart. We didn't go to the Walmart or the more upscale shopping mall next to it, but it did seem to be a very popular place for many of the passengers and crew.

We took a taxi from the port to what we expected to be the base of The Hill of the Cross Viewpoint. Be careful. They charge $5 per person and after the taxi driver agreed to take us there he picked up three more passengers during the walk to the cab. Those three were going to the Malecon, which is a walk along the ocean. The driver then stopped at what he said was in between the two points, but in actuality was only a block from the Malecon and ⅓ mile and, even worse, halfway down the hill from The Hill of the Cross Viewpoint. The taxi driver didn't want to have to spend a few more minutes driving up some of the smaller residential streets to drop us off, instead preferring to stay on the main road and get back to the port for another fare. Oh well… At least we got a good workout, though it was a climb of almost twice as high as we had expected.

At the top of the steep walk up the hill and then up a series of steps was a mural on the side of a cafe. We later heard that it doesn't keep regular hours, instead being open when the owner feels like it and otherwise closed.

Mural at The Hill of the Cross Viewpoint

The beautiful view from the top of the hill is well worth it! Check out the Puerto Vallarta photo album for more photos including a couple of panoramas.

Puerto Vallarta from The Hill of the Cross Viewpoint Elevated Platform

Even the elevated platform itself seems to be a work of art. After the long climb up the hill, the steps to the top of the platform seemed easy.

The Hill of the Cross Viewpoint Elevated Platform

The final portion of the walk up the hill is a series of steps. There's a funicular there, but it seems to have been out of service for most of the last few years. The website previously linked to shows a working funicular and a set of paths on both sides of the funicular, but the steps on one side of the funicular no longer seem to be used and are now overgrown with vegetation, as shown in the picture below.

We took a different path down the hill, one that was pedestrian only and led us to a restaurant, Si Senor, where we met David, a gentleman feeding pistachios to the parrot Nola. David has spent four months a year for the last 20 years visiting from Canada during the winter months. The mural of Nola shown in the picture below is quite amazing. When you view it with the naked eye it appears to be an abstract pattern. But if you take a picture of it, the mural is transformed into an image of the parrot Nola, as shown in the picture below. David also introduced us to the artist and the artist's girlfriend, who are also shown in the picture below.

Mural of Parrot Nola and Artist at Si Senor Restaurant

For a number of years David had volunteered in the construction of the tile murals at Tile Park. It's a bit of a walk from the restaurant where he met us, but he offered to take us there since he was heading that way in any case to try to find his wife. There are a few more pictures of tile park in the Puerto Vallarta photo album but they don't really do it justice given the limited time we had to photograph it. But the preceding link to Tile Park provides a number of pictures and even a youtube interview with the artist.

According to David, the work on the park is now on hold due to possible local politics and perhaps lack of monetary donations to the right people. During our walk to the park David provided a running commentary on local restaurants and shops, including a number of places being renovated. The work shutdown due to local politics seemed to be a common issue.

After a tour of Tile Park, David took us to the Jim Demetro Galeria where he introduced us to Jim Demetro himself. Jim has done a number of the bronze statues along the Puerto Vallarta Malecon. The picture below is just one of his many statues.

Jim Demetro Bronze Statue - The Washer Woman

Below are a number of other links related to Jim and his artworks.

So despite the rude taxi driver for the taxi from the port, and thanks in large part to the friendly Canadian David, we ended up have a wonderful day in Puerto Vallarta!

Click this link or one of the pictures above to see more pictures in the Puerto Vallarta photo album.

Thursday, January 25, 2024

At Sea

The Mexico cruise starts with three days at sea. It's great for relaxing and unwinding. One of the best shows for the day was a fruit carving demonstration. Click the picture below to see more pictures from the fruit carving demonstration.

Click this link or one of the pictures above to see more pictures in the At Sea photo album.

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Leaving San Francisco

Jan 23, 2024 - Leaving San Francisco

We did this same cruise last year as part of a combined Mexico and Hawaii cruise. This year we didn't continue to Hawaii after the Mexico cruise, mostly because Princess didn't offer that as an option for this cruise. In the picture below you can see the Salesforce Tower on the left and the Transamerica Pyramid on the right. The Transamerica Pyramid was the tallest building in San Francisco when it was constructed in 1972 until the Salesforce Tower took over that honor in 2018.

Click this link or one of the pictures above to see more pictures in the Leaving San Francisco.

Sunday, December 31, 2023

2023 Trips

It was a busy travel year last year with us spending close to five months traveling, mostly on cruises. Below is a map showing where we were and where I took pictures. Click on the picture below to see a live map with links to pictures for each day. 2023 trips included:

Jan 31 - Feb 25 - Mexico and Hawaii
Apr 18 - May 20 - Japan, Korea and Taiwan
Jul 22 - Aug 26 - North Atlantic Cruise
Oct 2 - Nov 22 - South Pacific Cruise

Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Wednesday, November 22, 2023

Back Home From South Pacific Cruise

Although our 35 day North Atlantic cruise from Boston to Rotterdam and back had seemed like a long trip, this cruise was 51 days long - our longest yet. As always, the cruises can sometimes seem very long and are often tiring when you have stop after stop without an at sea day. But at the end of the cruise they seemed to have gone by very quickly. And of course after a few days at home we were ready to go again

Click the picture below to see a photo album with some of the best photos from this trip. The album has a summary slide show or you can click any photo in the album and scroll through the pictures manually. The manual review displays a description for each picture. For more detailed information including date and location, click ⓘ or ⋮ during the manual review.

To see a map showing where the pictures were taken click on the map screenshot below. Click a pin in the map to see a link with a description of where the picture was taken. Click that link to see the picture and more detailed blog description.

Click this link or the picture above to see the South Pacific Cruise map.

Returning to San Diego

And one last sunrise while pulling into port in San Diego.

Click this link or one of the pictures above to see more pictures in the San Diego photo album

Monday, November 20, 2023

At Sea

Another beautiful sunrise while at sea.

Although we've been on a lot of cruises, this was the first time we had a tour of the bridge. Since they can only fit a couple dozen or so guests on the bridge at any given time, it was a pretty complicated operation for the ship staff to give the tour to anyone aboard the ship who wanted one.

Click this link or one of the pictures above to see more pictures in the At Sea photo album.

Saturday, November 18, 2023

At Sea

Some of the most beautiful aspects of being at sea are the sunrises and sunsets. Below was a sunset while at sea on our way back to San Diego.

Holland America, along with other Carnival cruise lines, have a tradition of making towel animals. Near the end of a cruise they will decorate the entire pool area with the towel animals.

Click this link or one of the pictures above to see more pictures in the At Sea photo album.

Wednesday, November 15, 2023

Nuku Hiva French Polynesia

After a day at sea we reached our last stop, Nuku Hiva. Although Nuku Hiva is a large island, the second largest French Polynesian island, it is lightly populated with less than 3,000 inhabitants. It doesn't seem to have the same coral reef surrounding it as the other islands we'd visited. As a result, there aren't white sand beaches like on the other islands and no places to snorkel near the shore.

The sun rises early here, but luckily I was up to catch this sunrise shot.

Holland America only offered one excursion for this stop, Taipivai Valley Scenic Drive. The tour consisted of private vehicles, each carrying about 4 people, driving in a caravan to various parts of the island. At each stop a single English speaking guide would describe the stop. The driver herself didn't speak English and few people on the island seemed to speak English

Our first stop on the island was at Notre Dame Cathedral.

Our next stop was at the Mouake Viewpoint which provided a beautiful view of Taiohae Bay where our ship was anchored.

Next we stopped at an unnamed viewpoint which gave us a view of Comptroller Bay.

Our next stop was at a cultural center where they had a number of tiki statues.

Although the island isn't surrounded by coral reefs, they had to show us at least one decent looking beach during the tour. I think it might be one of the few white sand beaches on the island.

After the cruise there wasn't a lot to do in town - it wasn't really much of a town. There was a small beach near where the tender docked. But most people were going to the small craft store and restaurant near the tender dock.

After the tour Elizabeth looked in the craft store for a refrigerator magnet while I had a local beer at the cafe next door. The line for the tender back to the ship was very long, in part because due to low tide they were putting only 60 people onboard each tender boat instead of the usual 95. There was some medical emergency onshore, though I'm not sure what it was or how serious it was. On the way to shore the cruise director Kimberly had mentioned that some people had suffered heat exhaustion on a prior stop. Not too surprising considering that the temperature has been in the 80's and 90's with the high humidity making it seem even warmer. When we returned to the ship the Captain himself was waiting for the tender boat asking if anyone aboard our tender had a medical emergency. There was one lady who had seemed to have some problem, maybe fainting, while waiting in line.

Click this link or one of the pictures above to see more pictures in the Nuku Hiva, French Polynesia photo album.

Monday, November 13, 2023

Fakarava, French Polynesia

Fakarava atoll, our second to last stop, looks on Google Maps like an upside down capital 'L'. It's so remote that it's preserved many rare species of birds, plants and crustaceans. The lagoon is the outline of a square with land on half of the outline and the other half being coral reef, visible as breakers that break just outside the coral reef. There is a large northern entrance to the lagoon and a smaller southern entrance.

We arrived early in the morning, but the sun was already up as we approached the atoll at 5:30 am.

We walked a mile from the tender boat dock to a resort. The resort had a cafe which was open between 11 am and 3 pm. There were some beautiful stone tables with thatched roofs just outside the cafe as well as a small covered area with a number of tables. We sat on the beach outside the resort area until the cafe opened, just wading in the large shallow, thinly populated reef area. Elizabeth had a blast today since she could wander far offshore without the water being above her waist. There weren't a lot of fish or coral though and the water didn't seem really clear. Still, for Elizabeth, it was a lot better than just staying on shore or in a boat while I snorkeled.

The only downside was the one mile walk, which doesn't sound like much but is pretty tiring in the heat and humidity. Thanks to the covered table area we were able to stay there until around 2pm when we returned to the ship.

I'd later seen some Fakarava trips which took you to a resort on Fakarava. It might have been this one, the Havaiki Lodge, and many of the cabins where guests stayed were right on the beach. Certainly it would be a nice place to spend a few days just snorkeling and relaxing. If you do spend some time here, I've heard that you can see a lot more fish by taking one of the tour boats out to the outer reef.

Click this link or one of the pictures above to see more pictures in the Fakarava, French Polynesia photo album.

Sunday, November 12, 2023

Papeete Tahiti, French Polynesia Day 2

Second day in Papeete we took a Holland America excursion: Ohana Catamaran Escapade. This one was a very large catamaran with maybe 20 or more people aboard. We motored out within the coral lagoon, stopping to gain clearance from the local airport before we passed their runways, then stopping again for snorkeling. We had about 45 minutes of snorkeling on the reef. The visibility wasn't great, though it wasn't bad. The reefs weren't as alive as other reefs we've seen but there were a number of large schools of small fish swimming there.

After the snorkeling they pulled up anchor and headed to the lagoon exit into open water, serving rum punch on the way. Our friends had taken the same excursion yesterday and they had done the snorkeling after a ride just outside the coral lagoon. The downside to that was that they don't serve any alcohol until after snorkeling. So on our excursion we had more time for the rum punch. One of the tour guides, I think her name was Mahana (sunshine in Tahitian) started demonstrating Tahitian dances. I was almost next to her and fearing being "volunteered" decided I had to use the bathroom at that moment. By the time I returned, Elizabeth had been chosen as the "volunteer" but unfortunately I missed her dance. **whew**

We didn't spend too long outside the lagoon before heading back to the ship where we had picked up the excursion. By then it was near noon and getting even hotter. The weather forecast said it was in the high 80's but felt like the high 90's due to the humidity.

It being a Sunday, practically all of the shops were closed. We tried visiting one of the local landmarks, the Catholic Cathedral, but it was also closed.

Given the heat and humidity, as well as the fact that most places were closed again, since it was Sunday, we went back to the Les 3 Brasseurs for another flight of beer. The local craft beer is very good. The people looked a bit more friendly today. Maybe they recognized us from yesterday.

Click this link or one of the pictures above to see more pictures in the Papeete Tahiti, French Polynesia Day 2 photo album

Saturday, November 11, 2023

Papeete Tahiti, French Polynesia

For our first day in Tahiti we booked the Holland America excursion - Tahiti's Natural Treasures which was a drive around the island on what's called the ring road. It ended up being a large tour bus with 30 to 40 people unlike the tour we'd had the previous day in Huahine with groups of 8 people. The large group size and single tour guide made it much less enjoyable.

Our first stop on this tour was at Plage de la Pointe Venus, or Beach of Point Venus. The Point Venus name comes from the fact that it was here that Captain Cook and other astronomers measured the transit of Venus across the sun. The lighthouse shown in the picture below was built later to commemorate the event.

Another stop on the tour was at the Water Gardens Vaipahi where we saw this waterfall pictured below.

The last stop of the tour was at Grottes De Mara'a where we saw a natural grotto, or water cave, that was quite a ways inland. The park also had some nice flowers and other plants.

One of the nicest things about our stop in Papeete was that we were docked instead of being anchored in a nearby harbor. This made it much easier and more convenient to get off and on the ship. Below is a night view of other boats docked at the harbor.

In the afternoon we went to Les 3 Brasseurs and I was able to get a flight of four beers. Locally brewed and very good tasting. But the wait staff didn't smile at all, didn't really speak any English and didn't seem very friendly. Maybe because, although it was a Saturday, it was Remembrance Day, our Veterans Day, and a banker's holiday here in Tahiti. Almost everything was closed and they probably didn't like working on a holiday. It was also very hot in the restaurant which was an outdoor restaurant. The weather web page said it was 84 and felt like 88 because of humidity.

Click this link or one of the pictures above to see more pictures in the Papeete Tahiti, French Polynesia photo album.

Friday, November 10, 2023

Huahine French Polynesia

Today you could say we had two tours. The one we scheduled through Holland America was the Pearl Farm, Maeva Marae & Vanilla Plantation tour which started at 12:30. But since we had arrived by tender boat a couple of hours early, we decided to hire a driver to take us around the smaller southern island, Huahine Ito. I guessed (correctly) that our 12:30 tour would focus on the larger northern island, Huahine Nui.

On our arrival into port, the view of where our tender would land showed just how sparsely populated the island is. With a population of just a bit over 6,000 people, it's a very small community. But it really is a community, where everyone seems to know each other and they look after each other.

For our 1.5 hour southern island drive we hired a driver to take us around the island, since we had spare time before the 12:30 tour. Our driver barely spoke English so we had to use Google maps to see stops that might be of interest and then ask the driver to stop there. We had to be careful though because sometimes she thought we wanted to visit a place when we were just trying to figure out if it was worth spending time at. As a result, our first two stops were a small grocery store, without anything of interest to us, and a Vanilla farm which we didn't really want to visit since we'd seen one already and would be visiting one later that day. After that we were a bit more careful and ended up stopping at some scenic stops in Huahine Ito. It would have been nice to have even more time to visit, maybe even try snorkeling and/or boating in some of the coral reef areas.

Our first picture stop, the third stop of our first "tour", was at a craft shop with beautiful te mau pāreu, wraparound skirts with beautiful patterns worn on many South Pacific islands. I wanted to stop mainly for a view from the nearby beach, but Elizabeth had been wanting to buy a pāreu and ended up buying a handcrafted one from the shop.

Our second stop was at Anini Mara'e. There are a number of maraes on the island, we had a closer look at one on our second tour, "...maraes are a sacred rectangular complex, where multiple types of rites and communal meetings have taken place prior to the arrival of Christianity"[*]. It's said that Anini Mara'e was the site of 14 human sacrifices.

We stopped next at the Tefarerii viewpoint.

Our final stop for the first tour was at a spot overlooking some unique rock formations. Legend is that when some of the male gods defied a female god by visiting the island, she cut off some of their private parts and put them atop the mountain.

Our scheduled Holland America tour, Pearl Farm, Maeva Marae & Vanilla Plantation, turned out to be much more interesting than I expected, due in large part to our tour guide, whose name I don't remember. What I do remember is that he spoke excellent English and grew up in a house over the water near the pearl farm we visited later that day. In fact, his wife also worked (maybe ran or helped run?) the pearl farm. His father was from the US, growing up in Los Gatos California. Our guide was born in Sonora California and spent many summers in Groveland, a small town I pass through all the time on the way to Yosemite.

Another major point for this tour over others we booked with Holland America is that they divided us into groups of eight people, each with their own transportation and tour guide. This made it much more enjoyable than the big bus tours we often had with 30 or 40 people in a bus with one tour guide.

One of our stops on this second tour was at an area overlooking the cruise ship. It was from the opposite side of the bay from where the tender boats docked.

After a stop at a Pearl Farm, which I unfortunately didn't get any good pictures of, we stopped at Marae Manunu, another pre-European religious site.

We also visited a vanilla farm. Unlike the one we'd seen in Tonga, this one was covered by netting. The tour guide had said this was to protect it from the pounding rain, but I'd read that it also reduced the glare of the sun, giving the vanilla plants more of the shaded light they prefer.

Our final stop of the day was at a location which wasn't officially part of the tour, the Distillerie Huahine Passion. Here they make some delicious liqueurs based on rum with various passion fruits.

Click this link or one of the pictures above to see more pictures in the Huahine, French Polynesia photo album.

Thursday, November 9, 2023

Moorea French Polynesia Day 2

Went on a "Swimming with the Whales and Dolphins" excursion and had a great time! One of the guides used another guest's GoPro to film the whale and calf we saw on the second of two sightings. To see the whales the ship had to stop at least 100 meters from the whale and we then had to swim at least 50 meters, usually much more I think, to see the whale.

Click on the picture above to see the photo album that contains a video of the mother and calf.

In both of our sightings there was a mother and calf. This being the end of the season I think that's primarily who is left at this time of year. Most of the others have already headed to the Antarctic for the southern hemisphere summer. Since we saw the whales from the other side, away from the boat, we must have swam more than 100 meters, maybe more like 150 meters. The second swim had fairly high swells, maybe up to 5 feet making it even more challenging. If I do this again I'll use the fins provided by the tour company which would provide more propulsion. My snorkeling fins are fairly short, which is more convenient for packing. They're also good for being around coral in shallow water so you have less chance of brushing against the coral. But I don't think they provide as much propulsion.

Had heard that some whales go to the Arctic and some go to the Antarctic but never heard what makes a lot of sense: they'll always be in the Arctic or Antarctic in what is the summer season for that hemisphere. Conversely, during the "winter" for that hemisphere, they'll be in the part of the world where it's warmer, that being near the equator, but closest to either the antarctic or arctic, meaning above or below the equator. So in general, according to the tour guide, they do not cross the equator. According to wikipedia though, some whales from the southern hemisphere have been known to cross the equator. That is the exception though.

Click this link or one of the pictures above to see more pictures in the Moorea, French Polynesia Day 2 photo album. That album contains a video of the mother and calf.