Nearing Panama Canal

Blog 3:: Wednesday 15th January 2014 - Aruba (15 miles off the coast of Venezuela) - Ship's time is presently 4 hours behind GMT: (soon to be five hours)

(PIC) - Antigua from Nelson's Dock Yard....

  On Monday 13th we visited Antigua, part of the Leeward Islands. Along with other scattered islands, these make up the West Indies in the lovely Caribbean Sea. Today we visited the beautiful island of Aruba, famous for clear seas, fantastic snorkelling and white beaches.  Antigua has many wonderful attractions but a visit to Nelson's dock yard is a must see place. Steeped in history from the 18th and 19th centuries this dockyard was a haven for the British fleet when indeed they 'ruled the waves'. It's an irony that Nelson was none too popular in this part of the world as he enforced very heavy discipline in his time in the Caribbean protecting the rights of the British on such things as tax and trade controls.

(PIC) - a typical Antigua beach.....

  St John's the capital of Antigua is not such a pretty place, a bustling but fairly run down feel, rows of shops with uneven concrete paving and rain gutters making walking difficult amongst the busy traffic. It is the lush green interior and 365 golden white sands beaches that attract the tourists, so needless to say, many large and expensive hotel complexes are dotted around the island. Not content with 37 days at sea on this first sea leg and some very rough force 12 weather we spent a few hours on a catamaran soaking up some sun and having copious amounts of local rum punch and local food such as jerk chicken and pumpkin salad. Ah, England seems a long way off both in miles and weather. There are regular flights from the UK to Antigua so try it out, the people are lovely, relaxed and crime is almost unheard of, unlike in some other West Indian Islands. If you are a cricket fan then there are trips to meet some of the all time greats like Vivian Richards or Curtly Ambrose who still live with their families on the Island.

(PIC) - Jacky  at De Palm about to go snorkelling.

Aruba is an island just off the coast of Venezuela. One of the Dutch Antilles, the island has been governed autonomously from Holland since 1986. This is a snorkel isle of some repute - especially on the off shore island of De Palm a short ferry boat ride off the main port. Now I am not proficient in the snorkelling department with all my aches and pains and years of sporting excellence (cough cough) but Jacky is a little fish and this is her moment, her day. I did nearly descend the access steps in order to duck my head into the clear sea to have a quick look at the wee fishes but for some reason I had a "thing' about protecting my hip. I studied the scale of things (pun on scale!) for a few minutes and through exhaustion of thinking about the challenge, I had to rest my weary body in the sun and sample the open bar, purely for medicinal reasons you understand.

(PIC image) - The many fishes to be seen when snorkelling 

Jacky tells me that the snorkelling was fantastic and for the fish spotters (if it's twitchers for birds what is it for fish? - wrigglers is my choice) here is a list of fish that were seen. Stop Light Parrot, Blue Parrot, Groupers, Smooth Trunk, Foureye Butterfly, Small Mouth Grunts, Trumpet, Sergeant Major (lots of stripes!), Atlantic Spade and many more. I also saw a very large Iguana which actually posed for a picture. I am told they are a local delicacy and taste like chicken but doesn't everything these days. Although this private island was in my view a bit tacky the fact that there is excellent snorkelling makes it a must visit location.

We are now on our way to transit the Panama Canal (Caribbean Sea to Pacific Ocean) which will be on Friday, starting at 7 am local time (about lunchtime for you, so check out the webcam!).

I am very exited about the Panama Canal. It is 100 years old this year so it's a special visit. The canal is 45 miles long and consists of five sets of locks, required because the middle land section of Panama is some 26 meters above sea level. The beam (width) of the Aurora is 32 meters and fits into the locks with 2 feet to spare on either side. Being over 200 mtrs long, well we have a very large canal narrow boat indeed.

The canal cuts the journey time of a ship travelling from San Francisco to New York by 6000 miles avoiding the need to travel south via Cape Horn and the Falkland Isles. It will take 8 hours to navigate the canal. We are pulled by 'electric mules' and a ship can only go through the canal during day light hours.

The original canal when built cost the lives of 28,000 workers, mainly due to disease. Health and Safety has come a long way in 100 years. There is a parallel canal with new locks being constructed which will allow even larger ships through. This will be completed in 2015.

I am still trying to upload pictures for the blog but as we are still on ship's WiFi this is proving a costly unsuccessful venture thus far. Ship's Wifi is around £35 for 100 minutes of air time. The strange thing is the ship's clock appears to be much faster in ticking seconds than my watch - Now if I was more geeky techie chap I am sure there is a quick way of uploading pictures into the blog. I tried writing a separate document and uploading pictures in advance but that has proved no benefit as to be honest I have no idea what I am doing!! I am therefore writing my original blog in text only (to keep the formatting in good order - thanks for the tip Ed). I am however working on putting some pictures and a simple caption explanation onto a document and then copy and paste to a separate blog when I get to some on-land free WiFi location (probably in San Francisco) - I do hope it will work.

My travel guide opinion of the P&O Aurora and cruising in general is still very open minded and it is far too early in the trip to make a valued opinion. This liner is officially on a 108 day round the world voyage but we are jumping off after 37 nights in Auckland. Around 40% of the 1800 passengers are going 'all the way'. The remainder like us are just doing specific legs. There is a huge amount of returning passengers both to P&O and the Aurora, which must speak volumes of the ship and the great value put on by P&O.

Many passengers are almost 'professional' cruise goers who are undertaking two or even three cruises a year - short and long cruises ( Where do they find the time or money?). P&O do really put on super food and entertainment - some say that this is really because we are on a world cruise and they up the ante so to speak. A two week cruise would not have the same levels, especially in the evening entertainment. For us, as first time cruisers, there is really lots to do or one can just sun bathe at leisure.

We have already had a new line up of singers and dancers and an excellent magician who amazingly disappeared one day after his act to return three days later from a top hat in the swimming pool - how did he do that! Look out for Singer called Phillip Browne - a West End star and a brilliant Bass Baritone voice. - He has a CD called 'The Journey' - I would recommend him to you. There is music for all tastes including a classical guitarist which makes my guitar playing look what it is - beginners' standard. I am learning to play Bridge and had a bamboo massage which got to every part of my anatomy - well nearly everywhere. We have just been to see an amazing juggler, a young lad from Cornwall, brilliant act. Earlier we went to see a Freddie Mercury / Queen tribute singer - again excellent. Yes, lots to do, you never get bored while being a board!

Blog 4 to follow after the wonderful Panama Canal - Hope all is well in the UK

You can track the Aurora on www. pocruises.com/cruise-ships/aurora/webcam/   --The forward web cab should give a great view of our journey through the Panama Canal which starts at 7am ship's time - that will be around Midday GMT as previously mentioned.

DKT