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adventures / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
13
Jun 13

Horseshoe Bay, Bermuda – day two

We spent the afternoon here, at beautiful Horseshoe Bay. This is the far side, the entrance would be in the background down the right margin. Famous beach, very pretty place:

There was a lot of energy in the water today. I snorkeled around the big rocks at the point one time and gave it up. It was manageable, but all the fish were elsewhere, so it wasn’t really worth it.

The best part of the day was on the beach. This guy had it figured out:

The next several photographs are just part of a series of the day’s snapshots.

The White-tailed tropic bird, Phaethon lepturus catesbyi, is the smallest of three closely related seabirds. Based on the colors and length of the tail this one is a male:

“Come on in, the water’s fine!”

(It was a bit cool, actually.)

This is apparently the thing to do now, enlist someone to take a photo just as you’re about to be doused. Do it for Facebook!

The most colorful, smelliest guy on the beach. He was the first one of the locals as the tourists started leaving and the locals moved back in, about 4:30.

I wonder how this happened, geologically speaking.

The trail behind the beach. Lone tree, trail and sand running out of the back of the shot. Fair composition.

Our cab driver had a global economic theory. If we all worked less, others could work more. Unemployment would go down, vacations would go up. Not sure about the first part,but I like the second-level effect.

Here is ~~magician~~ illusionist Jason Bishop. He’s highly regarded as one of the best guys working, despite some cheesy sweeper sound effects. Here he has placed his lovely assistant in a box, folded it up and then stuffed it full of blades.

Here’s Bishop and his lovely assistant, Kim, after she was found safe and sound in the recently perforated and then-rebuilt box. At one point he’d spun her head around and around in the original structure. It would be hard to explain. Just go with it, it was visually impressive:

Before the show he invited people to come up and sign his magic box. This bit has been in play for a while, as you can see, and so the magic box (which was empty, I tested it) has almost become a piece of folk art. For the show he invited about a dozen people from the audience onto the stage. He stuffed Kim in a canvas bag and had three people tie it up. He locked the box and stood on top. The dozen or so participants from the crowd threw up a big curtain, just long enough to get it over Bishop’s head. When it fell, Kim was standing on top of the box. She hopped down, unlocked the box and he was inside, in the bag, and the knot-tiers verified those were their knots. It was blink-of-an-eye fast. We talked with one of the knot-tiers later. She said all you could hear was a quick bang, like the lid of the box shutting. She was two feet away and mystified. Neat trick:

We met one of the chefs tonight. He was from Jamaica. He said his job was to count things. So I guess he handled the logistics of how many lobster tails the ship needed. In a sense, he is every bit as important as the guy driving the thing.

Because you don’t want to anger a bunch of old people from New Jersey who’ve just learned they can’t get that second dessert:

More food art. Some watermelons from sushi hour:

adventures / GoPro / photo / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
12
Jun 13

Devil’s Island, Bermuda – day one

Woke up in Bermuda this morning. We ran a quick 5K on the cruise ship’s track. Nice to do it without wind and all of those people standing around. This was the view from there of King’s Wharf:

Did you scroll around inside that image? It is interactive. Shot that on my iPhone, using an app called Photosynth. Works pretty well. I believe that is the best one of the few I’ve made so far.

In the afternoon we went here, Devil’s Island, for an easy snorkeling excursion. Click to embiggen:

We recently acquired a GoPro camera from my thoughtful in-laws. My father-in-law thought we could make nice videos in all of our athletic adventures. Which means now you’ll have to hear me pant on my bike, I guess.

We tried it for the first time while we were in the water today. The Yankee shot all the good parts. The rest were probably mine:

Oh, by the way, here’s our cruise ship, the Celebrity Summit:

The Yankee, talking with new friends. The wife is in a doctoral program and had just finished a class in entrepreneurial media, so we had that to bond over. Her husband had lived in Auburn, so we had that. Turns out he also went to high school with some of our other friends we’d made on the ship. In New Jersey. Even the big world is a small world:

This is Jordan Peterson, who is playing piano on the cruise. He’s an actor and musician.

And he’s good. I’ll have to grab a video of him soon.

Tomorrow: more beautiful Bermuda.

adventures / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
11
Jun 13

Another sea day

“It is 3:30 on a Tuesday and you are having a drink. As you should be,” she said to her lifelong friend. Hard to argue with that:

The Yankee is modeling in the hallway outside our cabin:

Our cruise director has a Broadway background, and so he was excited about Donna McKechnie, who won a Tony for A Chorus Line in 1976. She was diagnosed with arthritis in 1980 and told she’d never dance again. And then she turned to choreography and television before, in 1996, winning the Fred Astaire Award for Best Female Dancer. Lately she’s touring on this show, Inside the Music, a mix of songs, dances and anecdotes about her life in the theater. She has a beautiful voice. If you can see this show, don’t. It isn’t good. Unless you’re interested in the therapy of others through interpretative song.

At least she recognized “these marvelous musicians,” the cruise group, four people with names she couldn’t be bothered to learn.

This is the best reaction for that:

Just sitting in one of the quiet lounges on the back of the ship:

Sunset:

And now it is time for the creative food carving. Have a dragon:

Tomorrow we’ll wake up in Bermuda.

adventures / Monday / photo — Comments Off
10
Jun 13

Sea day

This is a sea day. I must confess that before my first cruise I was skeptical of the entire adventure. And then on that cruise, as part of our honeymoon, I laughed at the notion of sea days. Now sea days are my favorite. I’d like to take a weeklong cruise of nothing but sea days. They are restive and there’s so much to do. Or not do.

This first sea day was also a formal night in the dining room. One of the menu choices was an appetizer of frog legs. One of my uncles has been trying to get The Yankee to try frog legs for years. Under the “This is vacation; why not?” rule she had some tonight.

She said they tasted like chicken.

Here’s sunset off the deck. Sea days give you plenty of times to see the water. We also ran a 5K this morning. And, of course, made all of the cruise ship jokes:

You also get to explore the ship. Our vessel has robots:

And, of course, we got to see a show. There are aerialists here. They fly around in the sky. They are from France. I bet if you get stuck on an elevator with them they don’t take up a lot of room:

We have another wonderful sea day tomorrow.

adventures / photo / weekend — Comments Off
9
Jun 13

On a boat

To my chagrin, they take pictures of you everywhere. This is just getting on the cruise ship, where we decided to add a little joy and class to the festivities. I took a picture of their picture:

What is she taking a picture of?

That’s Manhattan, with the newly topped out World Trade Center there in the middle, rising 1,776 feet. We’re departing out of Bayonne, NJ — which sounds like it should be exotic, but don’t be misled — and heading to Bermuda.

Here is a look at some of the vessels coming up the Hudson River as we are departing. This is the Blue Rose. She’s a 6-year-old oil and chemical tanker that can carry 38,500 tons, flying the flag of the Marshall Islands.

The Osaka Car is just four years old. She’s a car carrier, and can tote 12,321 tons safely. This vessel flies the flag of Singapore and cruises at an average of 13.4 knots per hour. If you’ve ever wondered what 183 meters looks like, today is your lucky day.

And here is Panama’s New Century I. Built in 2001, she’s 199 meters long and 32 meters wide. This is a Roll-on/roll-off and passenger ship. That sounds like an awful lot of fun.

But not as fun as our trip. As you leave the Hudson River basin you see Brooklyn on one side and Staten Island on the other. You cross under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, a double-decked suspension bridge, which was the largest suspension bridge in the world from 1964 until 1981. (It is now the 10th longest.)

What matters today is the vertical clearance. Anything under 228 feet can get under it. And while I can’t find any measurements for our ship’s height, we’re close enough to the bridge to make this a possibility in any child’s mind:

She stretched soooo hard to reach that bridge. She didn’t make it. She’ll just have to go to Bermuda with the rest of us.

Meanwhile, Allie is watching over things: