Fall Waning Autumn Moon
The day has slipped by, Cuba still lies off to starboard, now very visible as we come close to Puerto Perde. We had lunch on the Lido deck, an elaborate cafeteria with many choices ranging from starters to Asian, Italian and meat eater entrees. The Lido is on the famous lounging beach in Venice, but I don’t know the connection between the cafeteria style food and the Lido since I’ve not been there. In Venice we looked at Cathedrals, bridges, the Piazza San Marco, but never made it to the beaches.
I spoke with Benjamin, the travel consultant, who says for $5 we can get a ride into downtown Santa Marta’s colonial district and, of course, its renaissance style cathedral.
Anyone who has toured Europe has probably seen more cathedrals than necessary, but, who knows? Maybe this is the one with the can’t miss interior. Could happen, right?
Having the only walk around deck right outside our room has made staying on my exercise regimen easy, though I’ve yet to start doing my tai chi. Maybe later today.
We have come 400 nautical miles from Port Everglades now, traveling around 18 knots on a course of 115 degrees, ese.
Our next three stops Santa Marta, Colombia, San Blas Islands and Fuerte Amador, Panama, on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal, now show up on the map projected on our flat screen TV. It gives us our current position, shows maps at various close ups, our course, our speed, distance to the next port and current winds complete with the Beaufort scale. I love this because I like knowing where I am and how fast we’re going.
On each journey I take maps. This time I have a continental map of South America and a map of Patagonia as a whole plus a map of the Chilean fjords. On these maps I’ll mark the day and time we visited the place, perhaps with a note. I have these maps for several places we’ve been and when we go back I find them very helpful. They are also a cartographic diary of our travels.
