Spring Waxing Moon of the Southern Cross Lima. Ordinarily gray according to Rosa, our tour guide for a quirky museum, the Museo Larco, Lima presented itself to us today in milky, but bright sun. My first venture out today was to the Miraflores section of Lima, an upscale neighborhood of exclusive hotels, fancy restaurants, and, […]

Spring Waxing Moon of the Southern Cross Chan Chan, several palaces of the Chimu rulers (750-1470 C.E.), spreads itself out over several square kilometers of dusky desert. The bulk of its buildings still covered with lumpy clay mounds, only one, Nik An, has been fully excavated, conserved and restored. We saw it today, fittingly for […]

Spring Waxing Moon of the Southern Cross Trujillo, Peru 8 degrees 14 minutes S 78 degrees 59 minutes W Finished our run from Guayaquil early this morning. Today we’re docked in yet another working dock with a gray metal platform of some kind, a conveyor belt I believe, extending at exactly our cabin level from […]

Spring Waxing Moon of the Southern Cross A day at sea between Guayaquil, Ecuador and Trujillo, Peru. I’m sitting in the Ocean Bar watching the Pacific go by. The sun is out, something of a novelty since we’ve been overcast a lot since we left Panama. Kate made an interesting observation at lunch. We often […]

Spring Waxing Moon of the Southern Cross To the southeast of the Veendam, low in the sky, a slivered crescent of moon hangs at the bottom of the darker lunar circle. This moon decorates our southern sky, carrying with it the flags of Islam and the romance drawn from us as the moon shows itself […]

Spring Waxing Moon of the Southern Cross Out on a tour bus with Paul at 8:30 am this morning. Paul, “100% Ecuadorian, made by and for Ecuadorians” had wide knowledge of Ecuadorian history, botany and fauna. He also made a comment coming back that catches the essential of the South American attitude toward time. As […]

Spring Waxing Southern Cross Moon We sailed at 5:00 pm, leaving behind the Seabourne Soujourn. I watched early this morning as a tug, a small motor boat and tanker went through a careful ballet, gradually snugging the tanker up next to the Veendam, but only after small lines were thrown onto each other decks and […]

Fall New Moon of the Southern Cross At 2 pm today the pollywogs, members of the crew who had never crossed the equator, heard their “crimes” declared as they came before King Neptune, the ship’s captain dressed in a Halloween style costume with long beard and trident. Neptune had a queen, dressed for décolletage in […]

Fall New Moon of the Southern Cross We will spend the next lunar cycle south of the equator so I’m choosing the iconic southern constellation, the Southern Cross, to name its moon. This day, drizzly and gray, upset one of our fellow passengers, “I’m so disappointed with the weather,” she said, in what I’ve come […]

Fall Waning Autumn Moon Two very South American experiences. Buying a Panama hat. Check. Crossing the equator. Tomorrow. The Neptune ceremony will be at 2 pm for those of us who are equatorial virgins. I can’t wait. I’ve read about this ceremony in books about the sea for years. Now I’ll participate. It is, in […]