From the Winter Solstice to the Summer Solstice as Fast as Possible, All Things Considered

Thursday, 22 December 2013 - Boulder, Colorado

Very Happy Christmas, Hanukkah, Festivus, and Use It or Lose It Vacation Days and Very Best Wishes for 2013

After an interminable ten month break after last winter's Cape Town to Barcelona boat ride (See http://cbu-africa1202.blogspot.com), Barbara and I are in the final stages of the arduous preparation* for an 18,000 mile sea journey in the South Pacific. We will be joining Silver Whisper in the lovely town of San Pedro*, just south of LAX, a mere 2 1/2 hours away flight from Denver. We will arrive in Nuku Hiva* in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia after an equally mere two and a half hours shy of eight days and nights (of course) at sea. Hey, that's a lot better than last January's two cascaded night flights on United plus a fun filled groggy day in sub-freezing lovely Frankfurt, Germany. Hint: A sightseeing bus ride in downtown Frankfurt should be very short for many, many reasons*.

When we observe that the moon is upside down*, we will know we have arrived in the South Pacific. Then on to the more well known Tahitian (Society) Islands*, a visit to the Cook Islands which is just one of my many missed stops in my shipboard career*, and then on to a circuit of the two large islands of New Zealand*, and a rare 270 degrees clockwise circuit of Australia*. Then northward to Bali, Saba, Malaysia in Borneo (!), Manila, and ending in Hong Kong. We will cross the equator twice and the international date line once by ship and once again on the Hong Kong flight home. Otherwise, we would forever be stuck in tomorrow*.

Some Statistics for the upcoming trip:

Flights: DEN - LAX, 862 miles and 2hr 33min of flying

            HKG - DEN, 7881 miles and 14hr 15 min of flying plus 2hr 25 min of layover at SFO

Itinerary:

Cruise Distance: San Pedro, California - Hong Kong, China, 17753 miles
Cruising Days: 50 days*, not counting Monday January 21st which won't exist for us.
Port Stops: 23 port stops in 11 countries using the CTC list (http://travelerscenturyclub.org/countries-and-territories/alphabetical-list)

Length of Cruise: 50 days courtesy of the "14-Day Free Cruise, Not Including Air" Certificate received last Winter* on board Silver Wind off the coast of Africa. Amazing what you can get for being nice to the guy in the white suit.

New Countries for me: 1 bringing my count up to 138 (but who's counting)

New Countries for Barbara: 8 bringing her count up to 63 (she is)

Silver Whisper:

Built: 2001 in Genoa, Itlay

Maximum Guests: 382 but usually topped at 360 or so "revenue passengers"

Crew: 302 not including the non-revenue producing guests such as entertainers, company officials, travel agents, and freeloading enrichment lecturers (!)

Tonnage: 28,258 metric tons (tonnes)

Length: 610 feet

Width: 82 feet
The Titanic was 42,000 tonnes and 883 by 93 feet and started its one cruise with 1316 passengers and 498 crew members. The Allure of the Seas, the current "World's Largest Cruise Ship", weighs 225,000 tonnes and is 1187 x 208 feet and carries 6296 guests plus 2384 crew.

Max Speed: 18.5 knots although I haven't ever seen any faster than 17.5, and that is with a tail wind and with drafting a school of dolphins. Usually the average speed underway is about 16.5 knots (19 mph)

Crew to Passenger Ratios: For Silver Whisper it's 0.79. The Titanic and Allure of the Seas are both 0.38. A coincidence, I think not.

*Notes:

1. Preparing for a long trip isn't really arduous, but it's a lot more for a 50 day cruise than you think. Personal supplies, medications, etc., are obvious needs, but an extension cord and 220 volt plug adapters to deal with the notoriously sparse110 volt outlets on ships and choosing reading materials--or in our case, for our new Kindle Paperwhite e-books--requires a lot more thought than you think. Cruise ship libraries tend to range all the way from pulp novels to ghost written autobiographies of Dan Quayle and Karl Rove.

2. San Pedro is 22 miles south of LAX airport and with adjacent Long Beach is home of the largest cargo port complex in the USA. The "LA Cruise Port" is actually kind of small and only sees a couple of ships a week. The Long Beach Cruise Port, on the other side of the container ship facilities, is home to a Carnival Cruise Line terminal. The passenger terminal is located inside the big dome that used to house the Howard Hughes "Spruce Goose" and is adjacent to the permanently hobbled Queen Mary Hotel and Convention Center.

3. Nuku Hiva in the very isolated Marquesas chain of French Polynesia has one town on it . The time zone is 9.5 hours earlier than GMT and so obscure that most computers and watches do not have a setting for it. It's ok, though. The ship blows its whistle a few times so that you can take some nice pictures of it from the town as it sails out of the harbor.

4. You can figure out most of the reasons that tours of Frankfurt, Germany can be quite short, even in clement weather. It's a modern banking city than was built pretty much from scratch after WWII.

5. Equator crossings by ship afford the wonderful opportunity to watch the entire sky slowly invert. The "Man in the Moon" becomes the rabbit, and Orion notably turns sideways and then presents itself  with Betelgeuse at the lower right and Rigel at the upper left with the Orion Nebular pointing up. After a while you get used to that--half the world thinks that's correct, of course--but most of the sky being unfamiliar to us Northern Hemisphere residents is a bit disquieting. There's the Southern Cross, a major consolation, not to mention the elevation of the sun being 5 degrees (ten sun widths) higher in the sky each day at noon. Winter Solstice to Summer Solstice, yay.

6. Most of my missed ports have been due to noticeable ocean swells preventing use of Silversea's notorious cork like tenders from operating safely. One does not reflect on use of these tenders as the ship's life boats. The other missed ports due to real or potential insurrections (Sri Lanka and Dakar), unforeseen storm destroyed jetties (Eastern Island), a typhus threat (Fiji), and a number of ports around the world due the ship navigating away from typhoons.

7. The circuit of the South Island of New Zealand will include a day sailing in (and I presume out of) Milford Sound and the much more isolated Dusky and Doubtful Sounds.

8. Adelaide, Albany, and Fremantle (Perth) are rarely visited by cruise ships. I spent a week in Perth 20 plus years ago. It's very far away--from anywhere.

9. Saba and Sarawak are the two states of Malaysia that are in Borneo. The rest of the huge island is shared by likewise non-mainland states of Indonesia and the tiny (in size, not wealth) country of Brunei.

10. I suppose, wagering on sporting events and day trading in the stock market would help subsidize these cruises if avoiding the return crossing of the date line were possible. I'll have to get out the string and the globe and work on a route.

11. Picture from last February's presentation of said certificate by the Silver Wind's Captain and on-board salesperson (Cruise lines don't miss a trick, but you do get an additional 5% discount by booking a future cruise when on the ship. There is usually a queue of guests waiting for the chance to do so.)