Travel Blog August 5 to November 8, 2024

Friday, September 6, 2024: Crossing Baffin Bay, between Nunavut, Canada and Greenland

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Qanuingi (I am well). And I am. I slept in to catch up on the hours we have lost and consequently missed the new captain (Rune Andre Alme) handing out hot chocolate on the deck as a light snow fell for a while. Since I have no photos to process today, I've been able to work on my current book translation. The sea was blue, the ship steady, and the only shapes on the horizon were the occasional icebergs floating by. The sun poked through the clouds from time to time as well. I did attend a Q&A session with the housekeeping officers in the afternoon and learned about all the hundreds of pallets of food and other supplies they needed to bring on board in Vancouver and that need to last us until Halifax, as well as the many pallets of recycling and processed waste that will also be off-loaded in Halifax.

Saturday, September 7, 2024: Ilulissat, Greenland, Denmark (69.2198° N, 51.0986° W)

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Mamaqtuq! (Delicious!). Ilulissat, formerly Jakobshavn or Jacobshaven, is the municipal seat and largest town of the Avannaata municipality in western Greenland, located approximately 350 km (220 mi) north of the Arctic Circle. With a population of 4,670 as of 2020, it is the third-largest city in Greenland, after Nuuk (its capital) and Sisimiut (where we plan to be tomorrow). The city is home to almost as many sled-dogs as people. Ilulissat is the Kalaallisut word for 'Icebergs.' The nearby Ilulissat Icefjord is a UNESCO World Heritage Site as of 2004 and has made Ilulissat the most popular tourist destination in Greenland. Tourism is now the town's principal industry. The city is next to the Ilulissat Icefjord, where there are enormous icebergs from the most productive glacier in the northern hemisphere. For TV and film buffs, the fourth series of the Danish TV series Borgen (2022) is partially set in the city of Ilulissat and was filmed on location. The town was also the location for the filming of Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997).

  

  

  

  

As our tender boats could not transport us, due to the sea swell being too rough, we were landed at the wharf via zodiacs, which meant wearing the waterproof trousers and boots again. It was drizzling too, so you'll see that the majority of my photos here were taken with my small Nikon waterproof camera, although by the end of the day it had stopped raining, so I was able to use my big camera, which I had brought with me in its all-weather/waterproof sleeve, in case. Our included tour took us out to the Ilulissat Icefjord, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, on a soggy day along a boardwalk for about a kilometre and a half each way and a climb onto the rocks should we wish to photograph the ice flow and icebergs. I was fascinated by the colours of the plant life to either side of the boardwalk and, frankly, glad I was wearing the boat-lent boots, as some places were quite muddy. A sign at the museum, which was a modern building where the boardwalk started and ended, tells us as follows: “The Ilulissat Icefjord is outstanding in the world because 1) it contains one of the world's most productive glaciers, only surpassed by Antarctica; 2) the glacier's position through the ages tells us about changing climates; 3) one of the world's most concentrated fishing operations takes place by the icefjord's mouth (Greenland halibut).”

  

  

  

  

The sign continues: “Greenland is almost completely covered by the ice cap, which is approx. 3 km thick at the centre. The ice is a plastic mass that flows slowly towards the lowest points. Ilulissat Icefjord is approx. 1,000 m deep and continues a long way inwards under the ice cap. This means that a great part of the ice cap is drained through the Icefjord. At the glacier front, the ice cap breaks off and drops into the sea as icebergs. Once or twice a year, large calvings occur. The annual iceberg production from the Icefjord would be enough to cover the USA's annual water consumption. The Icefjord is approx. 65-70 km long. It is densely packed with floating icebergs and ice flows, which are slowly pushed out through the fjord. The icebergs take between 3 and 12 months to complete the journey. The Iceberg Bank is a moraine deposit of gravel and stone, left behind by earlier ice ages. Here it is only 200-250 metres deep so the largest icebergs will ground. When they have melted sufficiently or have broken into smaller pieces, the icebergs continue to the open sea.” Ilulissat Icefjord was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004 because of its natural beauty and the importance of the fast-moving Jakobshavn Glacier in developing the current scientific understanding of anthropogenic climate change.

  

  

  

  

I then left the, to me, unimpressive museum, despite its lovely architecture, and took my time walking back to the ship, while others took a school bus shuttle back - our first bus since Nome! My stroll took me downhill past several sled dogs - the Greenland Dog (in Greenlandic: Kalaallit Qimmiat), is a large breed of husky-type dog. Most of the ones I saw were white with the odd black one. They were kept in large fields with their individual doghouses and all were tied up with chains. We were told once again not to pet them as they were working dogs and I have included quite a few photos here. I was also struck by the flowers, which in Arctic Canada were all stunted, while here, the same flower species were what I would call regular height. White daisy-like flowers predominated here. My first visit was to Knud Rasmussen's birthhouse, which was unfortunately closed, but I took a photo of the plaque as well as a small snow bunting on the side of the house. Next, I walked down to the oldest church in Greenland, Zion Church, built in 1779. When it was built, it was the largest building in Greenland. It has a great view of the icebergs floating from the Icefjord. There was a lovely monument of a fisherman plus fish and a bench from which to watch the ice, as well as a great reflection of the church in a puddle. The sound of the church organ was even audible as I walked by, although I did not go in.

  

  

  

 

Sunday, September 8, 2024: Sisimiut, Greenland, Denmark (66.9395° N, 53.6734° W)

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Alianait! (Wonderful!) Sisimiut, which really is quite wonderful, formerly known as Holsteinsborg, with a population of 5,520 (2022), is the capital and largest city of the Qeqqata municipality, the second-largest city in Greenland, and the largest city north of Arctic North America. (It's strange that I had never thought of Greenland as being part of North America. Since it belongs to Denmark, I had always imagined it part of Europe.) It is located in central-western Greenland, on the coast of Davis Strait, approximately 320 km (200 mi) north of Nuuk, the capital. The site has been inhabited for the last 4,500 years, first by peoples of the Saqqaq culture, then Dorset culture, and then the Thule people, whose Inuit descendants form the majority of the current population. The population of modern Greenlanders in Sisimiut is a mixture of Inuit and Danish people, who first settled in the area in the 1720s under the leadership of Danish missionary Hans Egede. Today, Sisimiut is the largest business centre north of Nuuk and one of the fastest growing cities in Greenland. Fishing is its principal industry. Architecturally, Sisimiut is a mix of traditional, single-family houses (most often the traditional, colorful, wooden, prefabricated homes shipped from Denmark, and almost always raised or supported by a concrete foundation due to permafrost), and communal housing, with apartment blocks raised in the 1960s during a period of town expansion in Greenland.

  

  

  

At last, we were able to walk off the ship in our own clothing and footwear and onto the pier into glorious sunshine and marvellous scenery, reminiscent of Switzerland with Matterhorn-shaped mountains topped by snow. It was finally here that I realized how much more wealthy Greenland is than Northern (Arctic) Canada or Nome in Alaska for that matter. Clearly, thanks to the European Union, Denmark helps its Greenlandic citizens much more than Canada or the USA help their Inuit. The temperature on my phone showed 5 degrees above zero but being a hilly town, and our tour taking us by foot to lofty heights, I soon started shedding clothing, still being in layers. I realised much later in the day that I had been told to, and consequently complied, buy a special hat with mosquito netting for Greenland, due to, I suppose, the mosquitoes being a greater bother in this country than others. Well, I neither saw nor heard a single mosquito though I did see a normal fly on one of the poppies shown in a photo above. And there were as usual lots of sea birds (gulls to me) swimming around the harbour, as well as a raven and a few sparrows so perhaps they managed to keep down the mosquito population today. I did, however, appreciate all the puddles and various expanses of water here that were offering photographers such as me ample opportunity to photograph reflections in said water, as you will see. The people did not seem to mind being photographed either, though when I was close enough, I did ask permission. In fact, to my memory, the only local person on this trip so far, who refused when I asked to photograph her, was an elderly craftswoman in Nome.

  

  

  

Stepping off the ship then, I joined a local walking tour, whose guide, a young Danish man, was a receptionist at a local hotel. He told me that this was his first ever time guiding. He took us out of the harbour, up a hill, and over to the pleasure cruise harbour, and past a craft shop, which was cash only (I had only brought my credit card with me). Walking further uphill, I noticed a cliffside, and, like yesterday, lots of heavy trucks driving on the road. I thought at first the white lines on the cliff I was seeing had been caused by trucks scraping against them, but I blinked and realized they were cliff art of various local animals. You will see artistic renderings of a whale and a polar bear among my photos. We then paused by the museum complex containing two churches but were told we would be coming back here at the end of the tour. We then climbed further, past a few better-cared-for sled dogs, white, also chained, and in the open, but with my large camera I was able to get much better photos of them than I had yesterday. I am guessing the poppies I saw in people's yards were Icelandic poppies and that the purple flowers here are Niviarsiaq (meaning 'young girl'), which is the national flower of Greenland. We then came to an extremely photogenic lake, at the shore of which their cultural centre lay and behind which was a high school. We were then led through and back onto the main road, with a detour at the meat market (Qimatulivik). There were only a few vendors, given the fact that it was late in the day, and the strong smell of raw meat turned some of us off. We then passed the cemetery followed by the police station with its humanoid sculpture, and ended the tour at the museum, which was a complex of buildings, some with model houses from back in the day, a collection of sleds from various parts of Greenland, the usual ancient implements, animal bones and skins, a stuffed seal, caribou and seabirds, as well as an old church with an ancient bible in Greenlandic, I supposed, open to the book of Job.

  

  

  

There's an interesting story at the museum about the whale bones standing in an arc-shape at the entrance to the museum complex, which I shall quote here, with my own comments added between square brackets: “Once upon a time, in 1905, when Abia Martinsen was out hunting in his kayak in the Ameralik Fjord, a bowhead whale ended up coming so close to him that he had no choice but to shoot it in the stomach with his muzzle loader. The next day, Karen Olsen, a resident of Qerrortusoq, stood and looked out at the Ameralik Fjord trying to spot her son who was out hunting. She did not get a sighting of her son, however, instead, she saw a massive whale carcass right off the coast to the settlement. Kayaks and umiaks [a type of open skin boat, used by both Yupik and Inuit] were placed in the water and sailed off to fetch the dead whale. They found out it was a bowhead whale, 20 metres in length and weighing 60 tons. The whale was towed into land and flensed [i.e. stripped of meat and blubber] primarily for the blubber. After some of the meat was cooked and no one got sick from consuming it, the entire whale was flensed to stock up for the winter. The settlement manager at the time in Sisimiut, Frandsen, heard of the find of the bowhead whale and sailed off to Qerrortusoq. There, he bought the two whale jaws for 5 kroners [whose value today is about one Canadian dollar]. The jaws were so big that they had to remove 2 metres off each, in order to place them in the boat that was to transport these to Sisimiut. The jaws were placed between the church and the settlement manager's house, in holes that were the length of a man [lying down I suppose]. The entire length of each of the jaws was about 7 meters. Today, the jaws are a pretty landmark for Sisimiut where they stand at the entrance way to the old colony, which today functions as a museum.”

  

  

  

Here is another description of a hunt and which explains the costume shown below, a type of wet suit. “In September and October, Inuit returned to the coast to overwinter where the opportunities for successful hunting were better. Winter dwellings were constructed of turf and stone. Seal hunting continued through September and October. From November to March, most food came from stored provisions kept in caches or from whale hunting (the bowhead whale was often hunted during the winter.) Whale hunting was, and still is today, a cooperative activity as were the communal caribou hunts in the interior during the summer. The umiaq (boat) and qajaqs [kayaks] were essential for a successful whale hunt. A special umiaq was used for whale hunting. In Greenlandic terms [it was] called an umiaq upannuit, meaning 'a boat from which you attack.' A harpooner would stand in the stern of an umiaq with a large harpoon attached to heavy bladder floats. When the harpoon met its mark, these floats would slow the whale's escape, restrict its ability to dive, and allow the boat crew to chase the whale down as it became weaker and weaker from the chase and loss of blood. When the whale was near total exhaustion, the hunting party could approach and strike the killing blow. A lancer would first sever the tendons of the whale's flukes. This prevented it from diving again and protected the boat and crew from the dangerous thrashing of the tail. Whale hunters had special clothing to help protect them during the whale hunt. The atallaaq was a waterproof seal skin suit that kept the wearer dry. This dry suit enabled the lancer to crawl on the back of the whale to deliver the death stroke and begin the flensing. Once dead, the whale was towed to shore where a more thorough processing of the meat and blubber could begin. The successful whale hunt was followed by feasting and merriment. The many tons of meat and blubber left over from the whale could sustain a community for a long time. The surplus meat was stored in meat caches that were like freezers, keeping the meat from spoiling or being eaten by scavengers.”

  

  

 

I also met a quintessential, young Danish woman at the museum souvenir shop (Scandinavian clear skin, blond hair, and clear blue eyes), but never asked to photograph her she was the only one in the shop and lots of ship passengers were there keeping her busy. Apparently, there is no law against importing Muskox or Caribou bone into Canada from Greenland, but there is against seal, walrus, and, I should think, narwhale products. I retraced my steps back to the ship, photographing a bit more of the scenery and then the sea birds in the ocean from my balcony. After such a perfect day, what could top it off but some aurora borealis! We were told that since the sky was cloudless there would be good chances of seeing some and, sure enough, a little after midnight, an announcement was made through the tannoy that they were slightly visible. Consequently, I got out of bed and went out onto my private balcony in my slippers and dressing gown over my nightwear and made some attempts with my large camera. On aperture priority, it held the shutter open for 2 seconds. I then had to give my photos some help with Photoshop for the results you see here to come through, especially to get rid of the noise. But, as I say, this was a first effort, with no guidance whatsoever, and basically pointing and shooting.

  

  

  

Monday, September 9, 2024: Labrador Sea, Canada

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Nanuq (Polar bear). I spent most of this sea day working on my photos and travelogue for yesterday, but I managed to half listen to a lecture on my suite TV on Ice and the Climate and in the afternoon took time out to attend the knitting group, during which we got to taste some typical Inuit Bannock bread with marmalade. As I had been asked by someone at home about my plans for Christmas, I decided to see what was on offer with Hurtigruten Expeditions for that time period and met with the Future Cruise Sales Manager (who only books for Hurtigruten Expeditions (HX) and not for Hurtigruten the traditional Norway route), but was rather disappointed to find that the next trip I had my eye on, which was only a month or less, would cost me about the same as what I am paying for this three month trip, so obviously I did not book anything.

Tuesday, September 10, 2024: Labrador Sea, Canada

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Nattiq (Ring seal). A second sea day, I had hoped to work on my current book translation all day, but of course events interrupted. The first was a short presentation of an autobiography written by the grandfather of our cultural ambassador, Cathy, called I, Nuligak, originally written in Inuvialuit language and translated into English by Father Maurice Métayer (1914-1974) a Roman Catholic missionary. Originally published in 1966, it apparently sold hundreds of thousands of copies, though when I looked on line to see if it was available at the Vancouver Public Library, it wasn't. The author was born in 1895 and lived on Herschel Island, dying in Edmonton in 1966. After lunch we Pole to Polers were invited to a presentation by the scientific team of a synopsis of the ranging geological, geobiological, and climatic changes we had witnessed since boarding the ship in Vancouver. It was very interesting and made me realise just how different the areas we had been in were. I had been looking at them from a photographic perspective, while not really thinking about, say, the variety of rocks (gneiss, basalt and more) or the height of trees to the complete absence of trees and other plant growth as we travelled north and east. This lecture went a bit over time so I then had to rush to Deck 10 to participate in the Name That Tune movie theme gameshow. Our team tied with 32 out of 40 possible points, and to decide on the winner, each team was asked to send one representative from their team to sing a line from their favourite song 'with sass.' Well, I was sent from my team and though I know a bunch of songs, my mind, in front of all those people, froze and the only thing I could think of and that I could sing without forgetting the words was Oh, Canada! The other team member sang Over the Rainbow, a bit off key, but I suppose with more sass than I, so she ended up winning the bottle of Argentinean bubbly for the other team. After the disappointment of letting down my team, I listened to the presentation about tomorrow's activities and attended a very short magic show given by the youngest member of the Cultural Ambassadors, a teenager from Ottawa. After dinner, we had a Q&A with the Ship's Officers (the Captain, the Chief Engineer, and the new Hotel Manager), followed by a Charity Auction for the Hurtigruten Foundation, which sponsors several community, environmental, and scientific endeavours around the world in places its ships travel to. Since attending and bidding in a charity auction was something I had never done before, and was, I suppose, a bucket-list item, I bid on a sealskin purse made by a Canadian Inuit and ended up with the highest bid. The most amount of money (highest bid for an item) went to an illustrated expedition map of our journey from Nome to Halifax. In all, over six thousand Euros were raised for items of Inuit jewellery, an illustrated book about the Inuit, two sealskin purses, and the expedition map.

Wednesday, September 11, 2024: Red Bay, Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada (51.7335° N, 56.4222° W)

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Nuna (Land - as in Nunavut Our Land). After breakfast today, I went along to the 'meet the photographers' session so as to learn how to photograph northern lights properly. He advised me to use a manual setting, hold open the shutter for 1.5 seconds, set it for 6400 ISO (he uses 10000 ISO but my camera's maximum is 6400) instead of 1600 ISO, capture raw images instead of jpegs, and compare my results. I then attended his presentation on how to edit images with a smartphone. Another interesting lecture I watched was one Swiss crew member's expedition across Greenland along the same path as M.S. Fridtjof Nansen. We had a mid afternoon arrival on land in Red Bay, Labrador after customs clearance and were transported to land via tender boats. Once there, we were divided into groups and taken on a walking tour by locals of this small community. Wikipedia describes Red Bay (population 142 as of the 2021 Census) as a fishing village, and one of the most precious underwater archaeological sites in the Americas because between 1530 and the early 17th century, it was a major Basque whaling area. Several whaling ships, both large galleons and small chalupas, sank there, and their discovery led to the designation of Red Bay in 2013 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Sailors from southern France and northern Spain sent 15 whaleships and 600 men per season to this remote outpost on the Strait of Belle Isle to try to catch the right whale and bowhead whales that populated the waters there. They were then rendered on site and their oil sent back in barrels to Europe to light lamps. I should perhaps explain that I was last here briefly in 2021 on a bus tour around Labrador and Newfoundland. At that time, I remember it was a miserable rainy day. We had a delicious lunch at the only restaurant here and then visited the museum. On our walking tour today, we had more time and it was a gorgeous sunny day at about 15 degrees Celsius. On our walking tour, consequently, our first visit was to a bowhead and right whale exhibit, in the same building of which there was a local crafts fair, though I did not see anything I wanted to buy. Our second visit was to the Parks Canada Orientation Centre (i.e. the above-mentioned museum I had seen in 2021) and I remembered many of the displays, which had not been changed since. I took a photo (below) of one of the models of a Basque whaler because his face was so lifelike. Thirdly, we walked over to the restaurant because there was a souvenir shop inside and while there, I picked up a Newfoundland magnet cum bottle opener and a Labrador bracelet, though the vendor charged 15% tax! Fourthly, in the same building, we had a tasting of local food and drink, and although I refused the caribou, moose, char, and seal meat, and the two types of soups, I did try the Bannock, some partridgeberry tartlets, juice and a scone. We then left to walk up a hill to another Parks Canada building that housed a chalupa (a wooden boat that was used to hunt whales) and finally stopped at the United Church next door to listen to a female singer sing a couple of songs with a guitar, though I think most of us found her uninspiring as we left after two songs, although she offered to sing more. I was anxious to do some more photography as the sun was getting low on the horizon but honestly didn't find much to inspire me, which is why you will not find many photos for today's entry. The sunset as we pulled away from Red Bay was spectacular, however, and I was lucky to be sitting at a window table at dinner so I could watch it.

  

  

  

Thursday, September 12, 2024: Corner Brook, Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada (48.9523° N, 57.9460° W)

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Aakuluk (I love you). We arrived at Corner Brook in the late morning and had an early lunch. Then we had an hour of excellent entertainment by a three-man group called The Sharecroppers, consisting of Ed Humber, Guy Romaine, and Mike Madigan, three retired teachers on bass, guitar and electric guitar or mandolin. We sang along with some familiar songs and then they presented some of their own compositions. It was certainly toe-tapping, feel-good type music. Most enjoyable. Then, mindful of the time and business hours, I left the ship, which was berthed at the pier, and caught the free shuttle to a plaza containing my financial institution so I could do some needed banking. From there, I walked to Walmart, down the hill a bit, to stock up on some pharmacy items, whence I caught the same shuttle into town. Here, I did a bit of photography, dropped into the dollar store for a skein of wool and some needles, to the Tim Horton's next to it to use their toilet, and then I walked back to the cruise ship harbour and visited the craft stores on the pier. All of the vendors in the five or six little shops were all quite loquacious - or perhaps all Newfoundlanders just have the gift of the gab - so it was difficult to pull myself away. I learned they were expecting seven more cruise ships this week alone, some of which have up to 4,000 passengers! I ended up buying a wool hat with ear flaps for Antarctica, the woolly hat I had bought in Alaska not being quite long enough to cover my ears, and a mug with some unusual Newfoundland sayings. At this particular store, I noted that a number of the sweatshirts she was selling were missing the first 'd' in Newfounland (sic) and I did think to myself she might offer me a discount on my purchase to thank me, but she did not. I got back to the ship for a late dinner and we left around 8:00 p.m., but unfortunately, this time I missed the sunset.

  

   

Friday, September 13, 2024: Gulf of St. Lawrence, Nova Scotia, Canada

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Takuss! (See you again!). I don't feel I got much done today but I did work on my travelogue in the morning. Then, in the middle of lunch, all the Pole to Polers were called down to a special meeting that none of us had been notified about before. Essentially, it was to give us an update of the Charleston visit, to teach us the first steps of the Charleston Dance, and so that we could say our own good-byes to those members of the expedition team who were leaving us in Halifax or Boston. Very sadly, this included the videographer, a gentle, modest giant from New Brunswick, who, strangely enough, used to be a drill sergeant for the Canadian Army, and the German-English interpreter, although we learned some of them would be back at later legs of our journey. I then attended the last-for-this-leg meeting of the knitters, and we spent the hour with needles threading the ends of the wool into the squares so that there would be no loose ends. Then, we had a short time to wash our boots and bring them down to the expedition deck, where we were told they would give us new boots on our next leg after they had disinfected them. Then back up to the previous lounge, where we had been knitting, for the Trip Quiz, which I was supposed to be doing with one couple I had grown close to (Australians), but they invited others and I invited others, so we ended up being in two different teams. In any case, the team I was with won the quiz with 32 out of 40 points, although the other team I might have been with tied second with the team beside us whose answer sheet I marked with 28/40. We were given a bottle of Argentinean bubbly to share among our team. Immediately after the quiz, was the expedition team recap, where each member of the team displayed a photo of and talked about their favourite moment of this leg, followed by another glass of Argentinean bubbly for the Captain's farewell, and a viewing of the wonderful video of this leg as created by the photographer and the above-mentioned videographer. The photographer assured me that the entire video would be part of the logbook email we would receive in a few days time. This time I saw seconds of me in it to prove I was part of the expedition!

 

Saturday, September 14, 2024: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (44.8857° N, 63.1005° W)

My emails and my cell phone have stopped working again so that's annoying. However, we landed in Halifax (my third time here), at the end of leg 2 and the beginning of leg 3, in sunny weather. About 100 passengers left and 200 came on so it's rather a large turnover. After all the departing passengers left, we pole to polers and transit guests disembarked so as to have our included tour out to Peggy's Cove first, and I believe I was successful in capturing different photos from my other two times here, given that we only had one hour. A couple of stores that had not been open on previous occasions were open today and it was lovely, sunny, and warm, providing for reflections in the water. The only thing I bought was a book on Nova Scotian vernacular, which I thought might come in handy should I ever be translating a French or perhaps Spanish book from a seaside town. A French couple, who are Pole to Polers and whom I meet now and again, said that Peggy's Cove reminded them of fishing villages on Brittany's coast.

  

  

Our next stop was to the Fairview Lawn graveyard I'd seen before, and where 150 victims of the Titanic sinking were buried. The cemetery plaque reads: “Here, in Halifax, lie the remains of 150 victims of one of history's most tragic maritime disasters. Just before midnight [11:40 p.m.] on [Sunday,] April 14, 1912, [after calling at Cherbourg, France and Cobh, Ireland,] the White Star liner RMS Titanic [was on its way to New York, NY, when it] struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic. [It was carrying over 2,200 passengers and crew.] The majestic ship sank in two hours and 40 minutes with the loss of close to 1,500 lives. Seven hundred and five survivors in lifeboats were rescued by the RMS Carpathia and taken to New York. In the aftermath of the sinking, White Star chartered three ships from Halifax and one from St. John's, [Newfoundland], to search for the dead. Of the 328 recovered, many were buried at sea. The remaining bodies were returned to Halifax where some were claimed by their families and the rest interred at the Fairview Lawn, Mount Olivet (19 victims) and Baron de Hirsch (10 victims) cemeteries” [Halifax's Roman Catholic and Jewish graveyards respectively].

  

  

Since the Titanic sank at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912, the graves are marked with this date. Given the freezing temperatures, it was believed that most of the victims died of exposure soon after the sinking. The number on the gravestone is the number assigned when the body was found. James McGrady, victim 330, was the last victim to be found. His body was recovered in mid-May 1912. In many cases, there were no distinguishing marks or personal belongings that enabled a positive identification of the body. There were over three times as many men (including the crew) on board the Titanic as there were women. However, the percentage of women who survived was much greater because Titanic's crew gave preference to women and children for the lifeboats so over half of the 705 survivors were women and children. Some of the victims have been identified in more recent years thanks to DNA and clues like initials sewn into their clothing. Also buried in this cemetery are victims of the 1917 Explosion in Halifax Harbour.

  

  

Our final visit on the tour was to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, the most popular section of which was a collection of memorabilia from RMS Titanic. It made for interesting reading, and I took a few photographs since this was my first time at this museum. Two of the photos here show the second-class menu and the crew list. As for the shoes, the Coroner's report for Body No. 4, the only young child's body recovered, includes this pair of shoes. For almost 100 years, his identity, buried as an 'unknown child,' remained a mystery. Then, in 2010, scientific studies concluded the child was a 19-month boy from Wiltshire, England, the youngest of a family of eight, all of whom perished in the Titanic and his body was the only one recovered. There were masses of other interesting information including a list of what the cabins included (the first-class cabins had fireplaces!), a map of the ship, and the percentage breakdown of victims out of men, women and children in first, second and third class, and crew.

  

  

We had 45 minutes here and were now late to drop off transiting passengers to their hotel, so I asked the tour guide if I could leave at that point and make my own way back to the ship. He was fine with that but notified me there was a shuttle to take me inside the pier as no passengers were allowed to wander in on their own. I bought some small items at the museum gift shop and then went out on the boardwalk for a stroll and to photograph at will, as you will see here. I also visited a few more souvenir shops. I was back in time for the aforementioned shuttle and got back on board among puzzled new passengers. As there was no lunch in our dining room, only champagne and a few canapés, I went to the main dining room but was not impressed with their dried up and curling sandwiches, though I understand from other passengers that the soup was good, so perhaps I'll try that next passenger change-over day and see for myself. Then there was a safety drill that we were obliged to attend because apparently, as passengers, we must attend one per month. Then I went down to pick up a new pair of borrowed boots for expeditions and after that I tried to go to the dining room for my usual slot of 6:30 p.m. for dinner but was told by the new Maître D' that I would have to come back in an hour as it was full at the moment. I was fine with the idea since lunch (such as it was) had been late, read in my cabin as I waited the hour, and then was seated at a table for two with an elderly British woman on her own from near Newcastle, though without a Geordie accent. I had then to rush through dinner as there was a mandatory presentation on tomorrow's expedition.

  

  

Sunday, September 15, 2024: Sable Island, Nova Scotia, Canada (43.9337° N, 59.9149° W)

Sable Island is a small Canadian island situated 300 km (190 mi) southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and about 175 km (109 mi) southeast of the closest point of mainland Nova Scotia in the North Atlantic Ocean. A narrow, crescent-shaped sandbar with a surface area estimated around 34 km2 (13 sq mi), it is approximately 43.15 km (26.81 mi) long and 1.21 km (0.75 mi) across at its widest point. The maximum elevation is about 30 m (98 ft). Having become a National Park in 2013, the island is staffed year round by Parks Canada staff. One thing it is famous for is its large number of shipwrecks. An estimated 350 vessels are believed to have fallen victim to the island's sand bars. Thick fog, treacherous currents, the island's location in the middle of a major transatlantic shipping route, and rich fishing grounds account for the large number of wrecks.

  

  

  

It is also home to many species of flora and fauna, including a breed of the unique Sable Island horse. The over 550 free-roaming horses, according to a 2016 report, are protected by law from human interference. This feral horse population is likely descended from horses confiscated from Acadians during the Great Expulsion and left on the island. In the early 1800s, many of the horses were used by men patrolling the island, searching for ships in distress. The animals also moved lifeboats and equipment to sites of shipwrecks. Sable Island is also a breeding ground for marine life. Harbour and grey seals breed on the island's shores. Seal counts from the 1960s for the grey seal population estimated 200-300 pups born at that time on the island, but surveys from as recent as 2016 estimated the number of pups born in that season at 87,500. The seals are occasionally preyed upon by the various shark species that inhabit the waters nearby. Unusual corkscrew bite wounds on dead seals suggest that the Greenland shark is probably responsible for most attacks here. One of the first photos here is that of a swollen, decaying, dead seal.

  

  

  

Lacking natural trees, the island is covered instead with marram grass and other low-growing vegetation. In 1901, the federal government planted over 80,000 trees in an attempt to stabilize the soil; all died. Subsequent plantings resulted in the survival of a single Scots pine. Although planted in the 1960s, it is only a few feet tall.

  

  

  

We weren't certain whether we would be able to land at first for there were quite rough swells on the northern side. For this reason, the ship drove round to the southern side where swells were less. Since Parks Canada has strict restrictions on the number of people that can be on the island at any one time, we were divided into three groups and each group had about two hours on the island. I was in the second group and had opted for the hike, as opposed to the beach walk. I saw a total of 18 horses as well as a dozen or so grey seals, the latter were all in the water and not on land, apart from the dead one previously mentioned. I also saw sandpipers on the shore and perhaps an Ipswich Sparrow flitting through the grasses, a couple of dead beetles and a woolly caterpillar, as well as multiple piles of horse manure. Our hike, led by Canada Parks employee Aaron, in reflective glasses, took us through fields of marram grasses and up the highest sand dune so that we had views of the entire island from the eastern tip to the western tip.

  

  

  

We were extremely lucky with both the sea and the sun. The Roald Amundsen has apparently tried to land three years in a row, and only this year, it's fourth attempt, has it been successful. I had long ago seen books on the horses on this island, never dreaming I would ever get to visit, but I heard some of the new passengers, going for the most part from Halifax to Boston, say they had booked this cruise solely to visit Sable Island, so they, too, are lucky we were able to land. Otherwise, it would no doubt have been a great disappointment for them. In any case, it was a lovely visit, and we were certainly blessed by the weather and the seas.

  

  

Monday, September 16, 2024: Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada (44.3780° N, 64.3144° W)

Lunenburg (population 2,396 as per the 2021 census), a port town on the South Shore of Nova Scotia, is located in a natural harbour at the western side of Mahone Bay, about 100 km (62 mi) southwest of Downtown Halifax. Founded in 1753, the town was one of the first British attempts to settle Protestants in Nova Scotia. Historically, Lunenburg's economy relied on the offshore fishery, and today, High Liner Foods runs Canada's largest secondary fish-processing plant in the town. Lunenburg experienced prosperity in the late 1800s, and many of its architectural gems date back to that era. In 1995, UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site, considering it the best example of planned British colonial settlement in North America since it retains its original layout and appearance of the 1800s, including local wooden vernacular architecture. UNESCO also considers the town in need of protection because the future of its traditional economic underpinnings, the Atlantic fishery, is now very uncertain. The historic core of the town is also a National Historic Site of Canada. The Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic, part of the Nova Scotia Museum, and located in a former fish-processing plant, includes a small fleet of vessels, including Bluenose II.

  

  

  

Once again, this was my third time here, but the longest time I have had to wander round. We had a free entry into the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic, so I visited this first, and was again very impressed. There was a large display about the local Mi'kmaq, who called this town E'se'katik, which translates as 'at the place of clams.' The Mi'kmaq territory extends through parts of present-day New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and the Gaspé Peninsula, as well as Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia. I tried to look for a dictionary or book on the language of these people in the two book stores I came across later in my walk through the town, but the only one I found was a children's book on the Mi'kmaw alphabet. The museum displays told me that “the Mi'kmaw language is a verb-based language that comes from an oral tradition. It was only in recent history that the language started being written the way we see it today. During the 1970s, Bernie Francis, a Mi'kmaw linguist, along with Douglas Smith, researched and developed a new orthography. Completed in 1980, the Francis-Smith system became the accepted written standard for the Mi'kmaw language in Nova Scotia. In other parts of Mi'kma'ki they use different spellings and orthographies for the different dialects. In 2022, the Nova Scotia government passed legislation recognizing Mi'kmaw as Nova Scotia's first language. The Mi'kmaw Language Act is meant to help preserve and promote the language now and for future generations.”

  

  

  

I also visited the displays about the original Bluenose schooner and the Bluenose II. The original Bluenose, a fishing and racing gaff rig schooner built in 1921 in Lunenburg, became a provincial icon for Nova Scotia and an important Canadian symbol in the 1930s. During World War II, Bluenose remained at dock in Lunenburg. In 1942, the vessel was sold to the West Indies Trading Company, which converted her into a coastal freighter for work in the Caribbean Sea, carrying various cargoes among the islands. On 28 January 1946, laden with bananas, she struck a coral reef off Haiti. Wrecked beyond repair, with no loss of life, the schooner was abandoned on the reef where she broke apart. She has been commemorated on postage stamps and on the Canadian dime. In 1963, a replica, Bluenose II, was built, and in 1971, she was sold to the government of Nova Scotia for the sum of one dollar. The replica schooner is used for tourism promotion as a sailing ambassador. In honour of her predecessor's racing record, Bluenose II does not officially race. The replica has undergone several refits to extend her life. This particular vessel was decommissioned and dismantled in 2010, and an entirely new Bluenose (also named Bluenose II, since Transport Canada deemed it a reconstruction) was built as close to the original schooner as deemed necessary and launched in Lunenburg in 2013. I was very lucky to see her today as she had not been in the harbour the other two times I was here. And it is also lucky I went to see her earlier on in the day, hence the photos, because when I returned to our tender boat to return to our ship, she had already sailed away from the dock. From Google, I learned that in the summer, the schooner tours the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, routinely stopping in ports across Nova Scotia, as well as Montreal, Quebec City, and many ports of call in the United States, serving as a goodwill ambassador and promoting tourism in Nova Scotia. In the summer months, Bluenose II also offers onboard tours and harbour cruises. As a piece of trivia, the name 'Bluenose' also became a nickname for Nova Scotians in the late 18th century.

  

  

 

After my visit to the museum, as described above, I perambulated along the wharf to take a look at Bluenose II and capture some photos. I then walked along three parallel streets to photograph the colourful buildings, murals, and flowers, and to visit a few art stores and galleries. I bought a crochet hook, a few more needles, and wool at a dollar store here. I noted some knitting pattern books for sale at one wool shop, but they were large and heavy and consequently not suitable for travelling. They were also selling kits here for knitting hats and scarves, but I think I shall just make my own with what I have. I also found a book on the Southern Shore vernacular to continue my collection of Canadianisms and regional dialects and phrases, though, as mentioned above, was disappointed to find nothing for the local First Nation language. My final stop, prior to boarding the tender to return to our ship, was at three local artists' booths set up at the wharf, one with some very clever and colourful local art pieces made of wood, which were of course too heavy and wieldy to transport, and another of very colourful, small, glass art objects made by an artist originally from New Westminster B.C., who spends half her time there and half her time in Lunenburg. I ended up having conversations with all three vendors. The third vendor, selling her original paintings, noticed my Running Room hat, so we talked about our respective running experiences for a while.

Tuesday, September 17, 2024: Eastport, Maine, U.S.A. (44.9062° N, 66.9900° W)

At the 2020 census, the population of Eastport was 1,288, making it the least-populous city in Maine. It is located on Moose Island, which is connected to the mainland by a causeway. Eastport is the easternmost city in the continental United States, although Lubec, Maine, is farther east, but is a town. We were at the northernmost point in the continental United States when we passed Barrow Point in Alaska, and I suppose I have already been to the Southernmost point (or almost) at Key West, Florida. As for the Westernmost point, it is Attu island in the Aleutians, Alaska, and even at Dutch Harbor, where we were last month, we were still 847 miles away from Attu, so we didn't quite reach that one! Given that the likelihood of my doing so is next to nil, Dutch Harbor will have to stand in as my personal westernmost point of the continental United States.

  

  

  

We are now back in the United States of America, just over the border from New Brunswick, so, of course, we had to go through Customs and Immigration. We were docked pierside, but had to wait for the local pier workers to attach a two-part stairway system to the ship, which was a tricky operation involving two fork lifts, yet fascinating to watch. The pier was just about large enough for our small ship, so no large cruiselines would be able to dock here. We then had a lengthy process of having all passengers, and then all crew, be face-checked by the 10 immigration staff that came on board. As there were a few optional shore excursions organized, priority was given to those whose excursions were scheduled first. In any case, everything was delayed by at least an hour, but in the end it didn't really matter for those of us who were only doing the local walk of the town, as the town really only consists of one main street chock-a-block full of shops selling and displaying second hand stuff or art by local artists. In fact, the entire town appears to be inhabited by artists, so I don't know how they manage to survive, and, frankly, some of the art I saw was very amateur to my eyes. I did my duty by visiting every single gallery and shop on the main drag. In the galleries, the best works were some large photographs of landscapes, water scenes, and northern lights. I did manage to find a magnet in a smaller souvenir shop and bought some earrings from a young native American woman from the local Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Reservation, also known as Sipayik, or 'People of the Dawn' (a population of just under 2,000 on the tribal census rolls).

  

  

  

Our walking tour, on yet another gorgeous, sunny, warm 24°C day, was led by two trim, local women in their fifties, who told us what every individual shop and eatery was selling. The town's pride and joy were two statues, which you will see here. The mermaid is known as Nerida and was sculpted in 2013. The fisherman has a more interesting story. According to its plaque, it “was built in 2001 for Fox Television's filming of its reality mini-series, Murder in Small Town X, Restored in 2005 with donated funds and services, the statue is now a tribute to Angel Juarbe, Jr., the New York City fireman who won the $250,000 grand prize in the mini-series and soon after lost his life as one of the first responders to the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001.” There was a great deal of pirate paraphernalia still on display - Jolly Roger flags, skulls, pirate hats and more - from a recent festival the town had had. I should also perhaps mention that in the late 1800s, Eastport had had a bustling sardine canning industry, with more than a dozen canneries. I learned however that the sardines in question were actually only smaller sizes of Atlantic Herring, Clupea herengus herengus. More recently, Eastport has built up a large lobster operation. It also boasts America's only remaining stone-ground mustard mill. As you will notice, there were also a lot of different types of seagulls hanging around, some of which I was able to capture with fish in their beaks.

  

  

  

A couple of final mentions for today: I was delighted to find a towel doggy in my bathroom after my cabin steward had cleaned my cabin. My previous stewardess had not been so talented. Apparently, by going green the day before, i.e. hanging a sign on my door to say that cleaning was not required, I had missed his first towel creation, a frog. I look forward to others of his creations as the days go on. The shots of the moon you see here for yesterday and today are because it is a full moon and a harvest moon. The first photo, which looks like a bruised orange, was taken before dinner when the moon was low on the horizon, while the second was taken after dinner when it was much higher in the sky. The third shows a partial eclipse of the moon, which we were told would happen at 10:44 p.m., so I photographed it at that exact moment.

Wednesday, September 18, 2024: Boothbay Harbor, Maine, U.S.A. (43.8523° N, 69.6281° W)

Towel creation of the day: Frog. Boothbay Harbor, a town in Lincoln County, Maine, has a recorded population of 2,027 (2020 census). During summer months, the entire Boothbay Harbor region is a popular yachting and tourist destination. The June Is Bustin' Out All Over sequence from the 1956 movie version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel was filmed here.

  

  

As my scheduled tour group wasn't until the early afternoon, I delayed taking the tender off the ship until about a half hour before we were to meet on the pier. A bus took us through town and out to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, which were opened in 2007 and have been named one of Maine's top attractions. The largest botanical gardens in New England, they comprise 295 acres (119 ha), 17 of which feature native plants of Maine and other suited to northern coastal conditions. The acreage also includes 3,600 feet (1,100 m) of tidal shore frontage.

  

  

Whilst I was on the bus, I learned that in 2021, Guardians of the Seeds, by Danish artist Thomas Dambo, considered the world's leading recycled-materials artist, was opened to the public as the first Dambo exhibit in New England. It features five trolls who represent the theme of biodiversity and sustainability. Each troll has its own Danish name - Roskva, Lilja, Søren, Birk, and Gro, which are in that order in the photos above and below - and represents a different part of a tree. The tallest of the group is about 28 feet high. Since we had only 1.5 hours here, and September not being the greatest month for flowers, I made it my mission to get to all five trolls in the gardens and photograph them. They were quite spread out, but the map we were handed on entry made it easier. (I remember that only a few months ago I had had difficulty finding my way around the botanical gardens in Cape Town. If only they had thought to hand us maps on entry.) Then, with the time I had left over, I had a look at the garden shop but found nothing to retain my interest.

  

  

Thinking the trolls a rather unique idea, I thought it suitable to copy out the words on their individual plaques as follows:

“Roskva stands for the trunk of the tree and is the heaviest, hardest, and strongest of the trolls. Every day Roskva climbs towards the sky, and every year she grows taller and wider. If a troll forgets something, they can always ask Roskva. She counts the seasons and remembers everything that happens around her.”

“Lilja holds the scent of the flowers of the tree. Just last summer, Lilja came out from her hiding place. The youngest of the trolls, she's still just a child. She loves the colours and the scents of the flowers and when bees and butterflies fly among branches.”

“Birk holds the roots of the tree [and] is the wisest and most mysterious of the trolls. He hides in the shadows and listens to the whispers of the soil. He knows everything that happens in the wild, and every day he tells tales to all the other creatures of the forest.”

“Søren sticks up for the branches of the tree. [He] is a very curious troll; his head is always turning and twisting, searching for places ever higher. He dreams about drifting around on a cloud in the sky, and when the wind is blowing, he loves to celebrate with dance.”

“Gro smiles with the leaves of the tree. [She] is the wanderer. Every fall she disappears, but the trolls are not worried because every spring she returns to the forest. On her return, Gro walks around to make sure every friend of hers is fed. After hurrying to catch a few sunbeams and a handful of raindrops, she creates a feast for the forest.”

  

  

On our return into town, we still had about three hours before the last tender was to return to the ship, so once again I visited a number of shops and galleries and was able to pick up a book on vernacular Maine dialect and expressions.

  

  

  

  

Towel creation of the day: Bear. Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States Census, Provincetown has a summer population as high as 80,000, according to our guide today, Colin. Called affectionately P-town or Ptown, it is known for its beaches, harbour, artists, and tourist industry. Its first inhabitants (though only briefly) were the Pilgrims on the Mayflower, who landed here on November 11, 1620, although after only 30 or so days they chose to settle across the bay in Plymouth. The second group of inhabitants were Portuguese sailors, many from the Azores, who, after the American Revolution, when Provincetown grew rapidly as a fishing and whaling center, were hired to work on US ships and settled in Provincetown. More recently, LGBTQ+ people came here in large numbers in the 1960s and later, especially after the AIDS crisis.

  

  

  

As we were due into Boston in the late afternoon to drop off passengers, though apparently not to take on any new passengers or crew, our arrival in Ptown was early and there was still fog in the air. Waiting for it to evaporate or burn off when the sun rose, our arrival on shore was delayed by a half hour or so. I was in the first group onto the tender boats as I had booked an optional tour to Cape Cod, styled as a seashore 2-hour classic trolley tour and leisurely hike at Pilgrim Heights in Truro, and stopping at some spectacular lookout points. As a matter of fact, the excursion was actually quite different from its description, so we were given a partial reimbursement of the tour cost. Due to the still lingering fog, not to mention the rain, that early in the morning, views of the dunes we did have were hazy, hence no adequate photos of them to show you here. In any case, once we had arrived on Provincetown's pier we were directed to take seats in two large SUVs and first driven to a point with a view of the salt marsh, which contained a number of greater yellowlegs and glaucous gulls, and a monument to the arrival of the pilgrims on the above-mentioned date. We then drove to the Visitors' Centre of the Cape Cod National Seashore, one of 400 parks in the US National Park System and established in 1961, from which views might have been spectacular but were not, due to the aforementioned fog and haze. We could just about make out the Old Harbor Life-Saving Station, built in 1898 and moved to Race Point in 1977, as well as Captain Penniman's ornate house built in 1868 representing the once profitable whaling business. After about 20 minutes there and a look at the parks souvenir shop we were driven to another parking lot where we got out to take a short walk along a path through woods and around two ponds called the Beech Forest Trail, one of eleven walks in this park. The guides were telling us they hadn't had rain for a couple of weeks, which meant that their ponds were practically dried up. We were shown a very dry cranberry bog still containing one or two cranberries, and I photographed moss and fungi on the trees. I also spotted a couple of wading birds, an adult and a juvenile green heron. Luckily, the rain stopped during our walk, so I was able to use my long lens to photograph these birds, otherwise I believe they would have been invisible to the naked eye.

  

  

  

At the end of our walk we were driven back to the pier and were then to take our ship's planned tour via a trolley, but given the fact that I would not be able to take any photos out of a moving trolley, and through likely raindrop-spattered windows at that, I decided instead to explore the town and its very colourful decor on my own. It was a good thing I did because I later heard the group I was in had had to wait about an hour on the pier for their trolley so had wasted time. Ptown being a haven for LGBTQ+ was full of artistic murals, and lots of shops selling souvenirs, so I picked up a couple more magnets, and met some very friendly merchants. Two of them were interested in my camera and they all wanted to hear about our Pole-to-Pole voyage just like other vendors I've got to chat with in other towns on this East Coast. I was confused by all the flags displayed around town so one merchant very helpfully showed me a card explaining them all and allowed me to photograph it. If you, too, are confused, please see the two-sided card below! As for the tall stone tower you see here, it is the city's icon, the Pilgrim Monument, a 252-foot-7+1/2-inch-tall (77.0 m) campanile, the tallest all-granite structure in the United States and built between 1907 and 1910 to commemorate the first landfall of the Pilgrims in 1620 and the signing of the Mayflower Compact in Provincetown Harbor. When I looked it up, I read that its 116 steps and 60 ramps can be ascended for stunning views of Provincetown, the surrounding seashore and harbour where the signing of the Mayflower Compact took place. However, given the cloudy day and incipient fog, and unaware of how much time it would take, I didn't even try to visit it. I got back to the pier in plenty of time for the last tender boat and after photographing the many cormorants sitting on the breakwater drying their wings, we sat in the tender for some minutes waiting for the last trolley of passengers to arrive and join us. The photos of the lighthouse you see here are of the Long Point Lighthouse located at the very tip of the Cape Cod Peninsula and were taken from the ship on my return onboard. The final photo is of the towel polar bear I found in my room on my return to it.

  

  

  

After lunch on board, and as we sailed to Boston, we had a captain's farewell cocktail and, like he said, it seemed only yesterday he was welcoming the new passengers on board (at Halifax). We then watched the video that had been made by the photographer of this leg, which being a shorter trip, yet still about 20 minutes concentrated, I felt, heavily on the Sable Island visit and did not include any of the wonderful photographs the photographer had taken. Mind you, he had very little time to edit it all, having arrived back from Ptown on the same tender as I had. So, perhaps he will have time to tweak it this week so as to make it of the same calibre as the two videos of the previous two legs. We were then called to another meeting to mingle with the newish expedition members, and I got to chatting with the interpreter about our experiences of the Northwest Passage and then about my own experience as an interpreter/translator onboard Royal Caribbean ships about 20 years ago. During this time, the ship arrived in Boston and various luggage tag colours were called off the ship one at a time and then it was just us, a group of 50-odd now on the ship until Miami, where I heard about 100 passengers are coming on board until Colón. After dinner, we had a lecture on the Cape Cod Canal, which we would be passing through around midnight. To wind up the evening, we had a trivia game, and our team tied second, while the team that came first was the German team that had tied second during last week's game.

  

  

Friday, September 20, 2024: At Sea

Towel creation of the day: Giraffe. Talking of which, what do you know but today, we had a class on how to make towel animals given by the housekeeping staff! We were handed a bath towel, a hand towel, and a face towel. Most of the animals we made involved only two of these, but one involved all three sizes and one involved only the face towel. It was a lot of fun. The creatures below, which are my own efforts, (except of course for the giraffe) represent, respectively, a bulldog, a cat, a penguin, a bear, an elephant, a turtle, and well ... I'm not sure but perhaps a mouse. They would all be nothing without the eyes though.

  

  

 

Earlier in the morning, we had a lecture from the ship's ornithologist on the criminal minds of birds and then in the afternoon before the towel-folding class, we had a visit to the ship's galleys from the stores of provisions up to service in the dining rooms. After that, the ship's glaciologist and geologist gave a presentation on the fjord in New York City (the Hudson River). Tonight, there was a very short class on Basic Spanish, and the expedition staff teaching it, an Argentinean, knowing I spoke Spanish called me up to try one of the four tongue twisters she had put up on the screen, the one with double rrs, which I actually remember from my university classes in beginning Spanish. This was followed by a very enjoyable karaoke session for just over an hour, with a mixture of passengers and crew singing mostly solos and some of the Filipino crew acting as back-up dancers for Abba songs particularly. I was called up first but asked for a crew member to start things off and work out the kinks, which was a good idea because the microphone wasn't working properly at first. I sang Billy Joel's Honesty and people seemed to enjoy it for many got out their phones and put on the flashlight and waved them about. I believe that's a compliment, in any case. The best rendition to my mind was by Thorstein the Expedition leader who sang a Michael Bublé song, Feeling Good. I don't believe the session was recorded but the ship's Mexican photographer was certainly there taking photographs and was one of the singers as well.

Saturday, September 21, 2024: At Sea

Towel creation of the day: Elephant. A somewhat quieter day, which allowed me some time to work on my translation. However, there were two time slots during the daily schedule to work on the Pole-to-Pole Voyage Blanket with our reduced group of four or five as we started to sew some of the squares together to start forming a couple of blankets. During the afternoon slot, we were served tastings of gravlax plus about 4 different vodkas, some of which were sweeter than others. I'm afraid my palate preferred the one that happened to be the most expensive. A couple of hours later, we were invited to visit the boat garage and learned all about the zodiacs and kayaks. Then, as we walked back upstairs, we were allowed to visit the crew mess and to peak into the ship's jail through the window in the door. It was currently being used as a storeroom! I was quite glad to be a passenger and not a member of the crew because the crew quarters did not look comfortable and there was a distinct smell to their dining area that I probably would not have been able to tolerate for long, though I suppose anyone staying there would no doubt get used to it. After dinner, we were invited to don our flapper dresses (only Alison, the Australian, and I did) and join a not-very-successful Charleston Party for an hour.

Sunday, September 22, 2024: Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.A. (32.7833° N, 79.9320° W)

Today we arrived in Charleston, known as the Holy City, probably due to there being 25 houses of worship, and most of us were on deck as we sailed into the harbour, past flocks of brown pelicans and Forster's terns, not to mention dozens of private fishing boats, and grasslands containing egrets, during which time we were offered bread sticks and a refreshing, mildly alcoholic concoction. We watched as we sailed under the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, which, when it opened on July 16, 2005, became the longest cable-stayed bridge of its time in North America with a main span of 1,546 feet (471 m), the third longest among cable-stayed bridges in the Western Hemisphere, and the tallest structure in South Carolina. Its two towers are 575 feet (175 m) high, and the total length of the structure is 13,200 feet (4 km).

  

  

We were then watched by laughing gulls as we entered a dry dock belonging to the Detyens Shipyards, Inc. and watched from our (early) lunch tables as it started to empty of water. We 61 pole-to-pole passengers were then allowed to disembark the ship in two buses (one for the 21 Germans and the other for the rest of us: Canadians, Americans, British, Chinese, Norwegians, New Zealanders, Australians, French and Dutch) starting with a two-hour-or-so tour of Charleston and the French Quarter. This included a great deal of colonial history, stories about slavery, and some of the more important houses. We learned that it was at Fort Sumter, which we had seen on our entry into the harbour, that the Civil War started on April 12, 1861, and that four South Carolinians signed the Declaration of Independence: Thomas Heyward Jr., Thomas Lynch Jr., Arthur Middleton and Edward Rutledge, all of whom have local historic homes here open to visitors. Originally Charles's Town, after Charles II of England, the history of Charleston (named in 1783), South Carolina, spans hundreds of years of physical settlement beginning in 1670. Charleston was one of the leading cities in the South from the colonial era to the Civil War in the 1860s. The city grew wealthy through the export of rice, sea island cotton, and indigo. Charleston was also the capital of American slavery. By 1750, Charleston had become a bustling trade center, the hub of the Atlantic trade for the southern colonies, and the wealthiest and largest city south of Philadelphia. By 1770, it was the fourth largest port in the colonies, after Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, with a population of 11,000, slightly more than half of whom were slaves. The aforementioned cotton, rice, and indigo were successfully cultivated by Gullah people, the survivors of enslaved planters captured from the Congo-Angola border as well as rice-producing regions of West Africa, such as Gambia, and Sierra Leone, and forced to work in the surrounding coastal low-country. As time went on, the enslaved peoples developed a creolized Gullah language and culture, retaining many elements from West Africa. Nowadays they can be seen selling rather expensive (I found out) baskets woven from sweetgrass (Muhlenbergia filipes) and Sabal Palmetto palm tree fronds for the most part. I read later that the art was brought to the area by slaves transported from West Africa to labour on rice plantations in South Carolina and Georgia and has been part of this culture for more than 300 years.

  

  

After a stop at White Point Garden, a shady public park with views of Fort Sumter and the harbour, where we were able to get out of the bus, stretch our legs and photograph a few of the surrounding columned houses, we were finally dropped off with our small overnight bags at Mills Hotel, a Hilton Curio collection, in a pink building, with two statues of dogs guarding the front entrance, at which we were to spend two nights before retuning to the ship. We were assigned our hotel rooms and after making a quick dash with a fellow (American) passenger four blocks away to the market before it closed at 5:30 p.m., we all met up for a catered dinner at the hotel.

Monday, September 23, 2024: Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.A.

Today we were offered an included tour to the Charleston Tea Garden and the Middleton Place Plantation. And before you ask, according to local researchers, it has no relation to the current Princess of Wales. En route to the Tea Garden, we visited a large and very old tree, known as the Angel Oak, a Live Oak (Quercus virginiana) located in Angel Oak Park on Johns Island. It is estimated to be 1,400 years old, and stands 65 ft high, providing a 17,000 square feet area of shade. Charleston Tea Garden itself is located on Wadmalaw Island and currently belongs to Bigelow Tea. It is the only American tea plantation in North America and contains hundreds of thousands of tea plants (Camellia sinensis) among more Live Oaks covered in Spanish Moss (Tillandsia usneoides), which is an epiphytic flowering plant. We first took a tour into the gardens and to the nursery greenhouse in a trolley driven by an amusing, young, tattooed New Yorker, who punned greatly and gave her spiel perfectly. We then had a factory tour, which was nothing like the ones I had attended in Sri Lanka earlier this year. As the brochure says, visitors “walk along the gallery looking out onto the production floor [and] see all the equipment it takes to make tea, while three large TV screens describe the entire process.” Instead of human pluckers, as I saw in Sir Lanka, this production is harvested thanks to a machine they call the “Green Giant, which is a cross between a cotton picker and tobacco harvester [as it] cuts off the top layer of leaves from the bushes, collects them, and then they are taken to the factory for the rest of the production process. The main point of production is to dry the leaves. The leaves go through a series of drying processes where first they are laid out for twelve to eighteen hours to wither, then the oxidation process for a little under an hour, and finally they are baked to remove the rest of the moisture. The excess sticks and fibres are removed and the tea is packaged. The tea is harvested from May to October.” We then had the chance to taste about eight teas, five cold and three hot and I liked the hot ones (not trying the cold ones) so much, I bought packages of two of them as well as a box of Bigelow's Constant Comment for about half the price it would have cost in my local grocery store. We then enjoyed a boxed picnic lunch outside, while orange gulf fritillary, yellow sulphur, and brown long-tailed skipper butterflies and green Eastern pondhawk dragonflies fluttered by and a turkey vulture soared overhead.

  

  

  

  

After lunch, we drove onward to Middleton Plantation and gardens, a survivor of both the American Revolution and the Civil War. Located on land first granted in 1675, five years after the first English colonialists arrived in the Carolinas, it is a National Historic Landmark and home to America's oldest and most important landscaped gardens, encompassing 125 acres, including a house museum and stableyards. One brochure we received says that it was the home of the Middleton family for eight generations during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. The main house, now in ruins, was likely built in 1705 and was part of the dowry brought by Mary Williams to her marriage to Henry Middleton, a wealthy young rice planter in 1741. In 1865, near the end of the Civil War, Union troops set fire to the main residence, and this and its north flanker (building), built in 1755, were levelled by the Great Earthquake of 1886. Its south flanker, also built in 1755, was restored in 1869-1870 and served as the Middleton family's residence until 1975, when it was opened to the public as a museum. Four sires of the Middleton family, who lived here from 1741 to 1865, became important statesmen as follows: Henry, married to Mary, and who had twelve children, was a President of the First Continental Congress; Arthur, married to another Mary, and who had nine children, was a signer of the 1818 edition of the Declaration of Independence; another Henry, married to a third Mary, and who had 14 children, was Governor of South Carolina and later Minister to Russia; and William, married to Susan, and who had two children, was a signer of the Ordinance of Secession along with his older brother John, South Carolina being the first state to secede from the Union.

  

  

  

  

Both enslaved and free people worked at this estate in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Middletons owned over nineteen plantations and 3,500 enslaved people. We were told that some enslaved people worked according to a fixed number of hours, while others worked according to tasks and once the tasks were completed, these enslaved people could be hired out for additional wages and move freely around the city. After visiting the house museum, we were free to wander the extensive gardens. I managed to get almost everywhere and enjoyed photographing statues, more butterflies, the three aforementioned plus palomedes swallowtails (dancing or perhaps mating), bees, green eastern pondhawk dragonflies, a giant cicada, birds (here a Northern Cardinal and a Northern Waterthrush), and squirrels. However, due to time restraints, I had to miss out on some of the other farm buildings and the slave cemetery. The Middleton Gardens also contain a live oak estimated to be over 1,000 years old with a circumference of over 37 feet.

  

  

  

  

We were brought back to our pink hotel and then bussed to dinner at the restaurant High Cotton, not all that far away and still in the French Quarter. At said dinner, I sat with three couples who were American, Australian, and English respectively, and we found out we were all around the same age within a 9-year spread from oldest to youngest (who coincidentally were married to each other). Instead of the tea garden and plantation, this latter couple had gone to visit the American aircraft carrier, USS Yorktown, while another had visited Fort Sumter.

Tuesday, September 24, 2024: Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.A.

We were supposed to return to the ship today, but we all received an email from Hurtigruten UK overnight explaining that the ship would have to stay one more day in dry dock, but that we would have to check out of our rooms by 11:00 a.m., and store our luggage in the ballroom assigned to us anyway, because we would be moving hotels in the late afternoon due to the fact that the lovely hotel we were in was fully booked for tonight. I was happy to have an extra day here to walk around, look at the places in town I had missed, and perhaps do some shopping. There were certainly some toiletries I could stock up on while still in the USA. So off I set, with my camera and a backpack, and due to some shopping I did was quite exhausted by the time I returned. However, I managed to get back to the market, and visit all four buildings, but did not buy anything. Then I walked down to Rainbow Row, a series of 13 brightly-coloured pastel houses along the waterfront, one of Charleston's most photographed spots and first constructed around 1740. They were used by merchants who ran their businesses on the ground floor and lived on the top floor. You will see them in the photos below as well as other areas of the French Quarter, in addition to flowers, many in flower boxes with butterflies, and birds.

  

  

  

I then thought about looking for books on South Carolinian vernacular and went to two book stores a couple of blocks away from our hotel. Neither had what I wanted, but I was told I might find what I was looking for at the bookstore of the College of Charleston. Founded in 1770 and chartered in 1785, it is the oldest university in South Carolina, the 13th-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, and the oldest municipal college in the nation. It was a bit of a trek but I went nonetheless and picked up three books of fiction with at least Black American vernacular and a t-shirt since we would be here an extra day. I then popped across the street to Walgreens to stock up on the aforementioned toiletries and then back across the street to have a familiar lunch at Starbucks. Arriving back at the pink hotel, we got on the bus and were driven outside of town westward to the Charleston Marriott, a 3-star hotel (a bit of a downgrade after the Mills House) but comfortable and functional, nevertheless. We were served a catered dinner in another event space in the hotel and were told we had a choice of two excursions for tomorrow. I was delighted to see that one of them was Boone Hall, another plantation and gardens, used in the film, The Notebook, and the TV series, North and South and Alex Haley's Queen.

  

  

  

The other tour was to the H.L. Hunley submarine, which has rather an interesting story. She belonged to the Confederate States of America and played a small part in the American Civil War by demonstrating the advantages and dangers of undersea warfare. She was the first combat submarine to sink a warship (USS Housatonic), although she was not completely submerged and, following her attack, was lost along with her crew before she could return to base. A total of twenty-one crewmen died in the three sinkings of Hunley during her short career. Nearly 40 ft (12 m) long, she was launched in July 1863. and shipped to Charleston. She sank on 29 August 1863 during a test run, killing five members of her crew. She was raised, returned to service, and sank again on 15 October 1863, killing all eight of her second crew. Raised and returned to service once again, on 17 February 1864, Hunley attacked and sank the 1,240-ton United States Navy sloop-of-war Housatonic, which had been on Union blockade-duty in Charleston's outer harbour. Hunley did not survive the attack and sank for the third time, taking all eight members of this crew with her, and was lost. Finally located in 1995, the submarine was raised again in 2000. The 2012 examination of recovered artifacts suggested that the submarine was as close as 20 ft (6.1 m) to her target, Housatonic, when her deployed torpedo exploded, causing the submarine to sink. I thought it amazing that anyone would want to serve on a submarine that had sunk once, let alone twice!

  

  

  

   

Wednesday, September 25, 2024: Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.A.

After breakfast in the same event venue as our dinner last night, we got into our tour bus, this time filled with both German- and English-speakers and a bilingual guide, and headed off to Boone Plantation, located north of Charleston in Mount Pleasant, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The plantation is one of America's oldest plantations still in operation having continually produced agricultural crops for over 320 years. The majority of this labour, as well as the construction of the buildings and their characteristic bricks, was performed by enslaved African Americans. For this reason, the site was named one of the African American Historic Places in South Carolina in 2009. The historic district includes a 1936 Colonial Revival-style dwelling, and rows of southern live oak trees on the entrance avenue leading up to the house. The earliest known reference to the site is in 1681 in a land grant of 470 acres (1.9 km2) from owner Theophilus Patey to his daughter Elizabeth and her new husband Major John Boone as a wedding gift. Their land became known as Boone Hall Plantation, but it is unknown when a house was built on the site. John Boone was one of the first settlers to arrive in the colony of South Carolina, doing so in 1672. The antebellum-style mansion that exists on Boone Hall Plantation today was built in 1936 by Canadian ambassador Thomas Stone as part of the Second Wave of Reconstruction.

  

  

We first had a tour of the ground floor of the house and then were invited to stroll through the gardens on the way to a live presentation of the evolution and development of the Gullah Culture by the elderly Black American woman seen here among my photos. On the way to her show, we peeked into the nine cabins of Slave Street, as the map calls it, each displaying different periods in black history. There was a lot to read and little time to do so, unfortunately, so I took photos of some of the descriptions and will reproduce some of them here.

  

  

One was the last will and testament of Mary Boone (1696 - 1783?) dated September 2, 1780. Its introduction says, “Mary Boone was married to Thomas Boone, son of the first John Boone. Mary was born in 1696, but it is unclear when she died. According to records, she would have been in her 80s when she died. This unusually long life can be attributed to her wealth. Having the best to eat, best medical care and a good house allowed her to outlive 3 of her ... 7 children with Thomas Boone. In the first part of her Will, Mary divides up her slaves. It appears that she has tried to keep certain families together. Some of these slaves show up in her inventory as does the silver teapot that she gave her grandson, Thomas Boone. She also gives one of her slaves, Old Scipio, his freedom.”

  

  

Next, I noted one display containing three newspaper announcements of sales. “To be sold on board the ship Bance Island, on Tuesday the 6th of May next at Ashley Ferry, a choice cargo of about 250 fine healthy Negroes, just arrived from the Windward [Coast = the coastlines of the modern states of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast, to the west of the Gold Coast] and Rice Coast [the traditional rice-growing region between Guinea and Guinea-Bissau and the western Ivory Coast]. The utmost care has already been taken, and shall be continued, to keep them free from the least danger of being infected with the Small-Pox, no boat having been on board, and all other communication with people from Charles-Town prevented. N.B. Full one half of the above Negroes have had the Small-Pox in their own country.” “Gang of 25 Sea Island Cotton and Rice Negroes, ... on Thursday the 25th Sept, 1852, at 11 o'clock, A.M., will be sold at Ryan's Mart in Chalmers Street in the City of Charleston, A prime gang of 25 Negroes, accustomed to the culture of Sea Island Cotton and Rice. Conditions: One-half Cash, balance by Bond, bearing interest from day of sale, payable in one and two years, to be secured by a mortgage of the negroes and approved personal security. Purchaser to pay for papers.” “55 Prime Negroes accustomed to the culture of Rice on Wednesday, 21st January, 1857 at Ryan's Mart in Chalmers Street will be sold in families at 11 o'clock A.M., in the city of Charleston. An uncommonly prime gang of Rice-Field Negroes. Conditions: One-third Cash, Balance by Bond, payable in two equal annual Instalments with interest, payable annually from day of sale, to be secured by a mortgage of the property, and approved personal security. Purchaser to pay for papers.” The latter two notices were completed by a list of said individuals, their names, ages, skills, relationships to others in the list, if pertinent, and any physical 'defects' ('one eye', 'deaf'), notable characteristics ('complains') or recent illnesses ('dysentery').

  

  

“Slaves in South Carolina commonly prepared the seeds of the Okra plant as a coffee substitute. Its leaves were also used medicinally as a softening ingredient in making a poultice, which is a warm mixture of bread or clay that can be applied to aching or inflamed parts of the body. Enslaved women sometimes used okra to force a miscarriage by lubricating the uterine passage of pregnant women with the plant's slimy pods. In West Africa, women today still use okra to induce miscarriages, employing much the same method.”

  

  

I was reminded of my visits to the dungeons where captured men and women were held in (now) UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Elmina and Cape Coast Castles before going through the door of no return, being bundled into ships under execrable circumstances, and transported to the New World. Although I don't believe Charleston was mentioned in the presentations given there, instead I believe they mentioned islands in the Caribbean, similar practices were clearly being carried out in other West Africa countries, and I had a sense of traveling full circle in their story by my coming to Charleston. There was also a museum at Boone Plantation that I did not have time to visit and a couple of gift shops, one in which I bought a few more books, including a Gullah language New Testament, as mentioned by the Gullah presenter, a book on Gullah culture, and a biography of one of the last slaves to be brought over from Africa, as well as a CD of their songs ... and another t-shirt in case we had to stay yet another extra day, though the ship is allowing us to use the laundry service at the hotel at their cost.

  

  

We left at 1:00 p.m. and were driven to Shem Creek for a light lunch at Shem Creek Crab House, in a tree behind which I found some more Boat-tailed Grackles and admired their blue coloured hue. It was lucky that lunch was light because not three hours later we were being driven to our choice of three side-by-side restaurants in the French Quarter. I had chosen French cuisine, which we had at a restaurant called 39 rue de Jean, and like most French restaurants in North America, it was not cheap, but worth the price (to be reimbursed by the ship, luckily).

  

  

  

Thursday, September 26, 2024: Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.A.

We received another email overnight from Hurtigruten in the United Kingdom, announcing our itinerary change (see the below map), and confirming to us that due to an upcoming weather issue (Hurricane Helena), we would stay one more day at the Marriott Hotel, but would have free shuttles available both today and tomorrow to take us into town, should we wish. Meanwhile, we were told that the ship was safely out of dry dock and had been transferred to the Charleston cruise terminal. We are still not sure if we are stopping in Miami for long enough to do the promised tour or not. However, we also learned to our dismay that while the ship had been in dry dock, the crew had had to sleep outside on the deck as the ship, unable to make its own water whilst in dry dock, was also unable to provide air conditioning, so the crew were stifling in their rooms. We were provided with a different event space (Opal Ballroom) for our catered breakfast as a new group - of Black Lawyers - was using the event space we had been using the previous two days for our catered hotel meals. Since it was raining hard and I wasn't about to go downtown to fight the wind and rain (although plenty of others among us did), I took the opportunity of a free day to work on the previous five days of photos, my website, etc. As we were asked to get our own lunches and save the receipts, I had a rather garlicky mushroom flatbread at the hotel restaurant and then continued to work on my photos until we gathered together at 6:00ish for a catered dinner in the same ballroom. I then read in my room until bedtime. Hurricane Helena is supposed to pass over Charleston at roughly 2:00 a.m. tonight.

Friday, September 27, 2024: Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.A.

Towel creation of the day: Seal. I awoke to an alert notification on my phone regarding a flash flood expected at 11:45 a.m. Rain and wind had caused some flooding of roads and a lot of debris on streets, but by the afternoon, thanks to a hot sun, most was dried up/had been swept away. I worked on my translation until 1:20 p.m. as I had asked for a late check out, which I then did and had two of my bags stored in a locked room near reception. Next, I went to have snacks in the space set aside for us (Opal Ballroom), took the 2:00 p.m. shuttle to the market, and walked up and down the stalls in four consecutive buildings about four times trying to find the items I had seen on Tuesday before realizing that probably some vendors had not been able to come into the city due to the flooding and other complications. I then waited in the hotel lobby reading until 5:00 p.m. and then waited a further almost half-hour outside for the bus to arrive to take us to the ship. Arriving back on the ship, we were warmly welcomed with Argentinean bubbly and my cabin steward accompanied me and my luggage to my room, in which I found the below towel seal. I noted that there were a few new faces among the expedition team. There was another obligatory safety drill and then dinner. I tried to watch a movie in the evening but fell asleep and went to bed but I did not sleep much due to a knocking sound coming from behind my mirror.

 

Saturday, September 28, 2024: At Sea

Towel creation of the day: Turtle. Clearly better than the one I made! I pointed out the knocking to said cabin steward, smiling Cris, and he had three carpenters come and tear out the ceiling to find that it was a loose bolt. All is quiet on the Western Front once again. A sea day on our way to Miami, we met some of the new faces as we attended events, though I did manage some time this morning to finish the second read-through of a book translation and worked on this travelogue. However, it seems I missed an excellent lecture about the Horseshoe Crab, an arthropod of the family Limulidae and the only surviving xiphosuran. Despite its name, it's not a true crab or crustacean; rather, it's a chelicerate, which makes it more closely related to arachnids like spiders, ticks, and scorpions, according to Wikipedia. I then came in on the tail end of a lecture on Navigation before attending an interpretation workshop, led by the current three German/English interpreters (two of them new since Charleston) on board. In my opinion, they were well versed in simultaneous conference interpreting but were not as familiar with all the variations that existed for consecutive interpreting. The three young ladies ended their lecture/workshop with an exercise in shadowing, which went over well. I then rushed upstairs to join the knitting club, which was hosted by two other young women also recently joined, both scientists, and managed to sew together a few more knitted squares to the blanket I have been working on. As all guests were invited to dine at the suites dining room this evening, I went to the 6:00 p.m. sitting and then joined everyone upstairs for the Captain's Q&A to find out what had really happened during dry dock and why our return onboard had been delayed twice. The latter reason was of course the hurricane, but the first one we found out was due to the fact that they had to wait 12 hours before they could leave dry dock due to the tides. There were about three or four rather more angry (frustrated) passengers who asked questions, but an American man and a German woman both spoke positively about the experience, saying that we were well looked after, sheltered, fed, and entertained, while the crew had not been so lucky so we were grateful for their efforts to keep us safe in Charleston. And Charleston was beautiful, though one Australian did remark that he would have preferred to have had to stay five days in New York! This had been planned for half an hour but went over an hour and was immediately followed by three games of Bingo. I was one number away from winning in the second game, and shouted bingo together with the Englishwoman who had won the second game and the prize of a baseball cap. As there were two of us and only one prize, we had to guess a number nearest to the next bingo number to be drawn and her guess was closer, so she won both games. The prize for the third game was a ship spa treatment coupon.

Sunday, September 29, 2024: Miami, Florida, U.S.A. (25.7617° N, 80.1918° W)

Towel creation of the day: Monkey suspended from my ceiling tiles with a clothes' hanger! After attending a lecture on the flora and fauna in the Florida Everglades, we arrived in Miami in the late morning, and as the Immigration officers were once more late (but it is a Sunday today and there are two huge Carnival ships in this same port - our comparatively small ship is berthed between them), I had an early lunch, at the end of which our group was called to leave the ship and go through immigration in the terminal building. I went with only my passport, phone, and a book, thinking I would be able to return to the ship immediately. After only briefly glancing at the cover of my passport, the officers, who were not very official-looking and just standing about in a group, told me I was free to leave. However, when I turned right to come right back into the terminal, I was made to wait behind a line of new passengers that had just arrived off a bus. Then, once again, I was pretty much waived through after I showed them my cabin key, but then as I joined a sitting area for a half dozen or so others of our pole-to-pole group, we were told the ship hadn't been cleared yet so we would have to wait 45 minutes before we could get back in. Boy, was I glad I had that book to read as there was no Wi-Fi in the terminal building, which would have been my second fall-back option. Once I was back in my cabin in the early afternoon, I returned to my laptop to continue writing up this travelogue, and finally got caught up.

  

  

  

We pole to polers did not have to attend the safety drill this time as we welcomed about 195 new passengers. As we left port, I stood on my balcony and watched Miami sea/beach/coastal life unfold before me: music blaring from boats, police boat sirens wailing, cars moving slowly on the express way, mega-yachts parked in front of mega-houses, as drones, seagulls, pelicans, and other unidentified birds flew over head, as did a lone paraglider, who could see everything from above, the setting sun glinting from thousands of windows and beachgoers swimming and partying until finally there was nothing left but a faint skyline on the horizon outlined in pinks and golds, yellows and oranges. I hope my photos will do justice but of course a camera will never capture exactly what the eyes can see.

  

  

  

After dinner at which I shared a table with a newly onboard young couple in their thirties, the young woman, French from the Comores, and the fellow, Punjabi, but both lived in London. She works in sales for Hurtigruten but this is the first time cruising for both of them. I then attended the end of the presentation of the new expedition team for the pole to polers bringing with me my dessert and a cappuccino from the dining room as I had not yet finished dinner, and then an introduction to the ship and the schedule by the new expedition leader, Fred, who speaks good English and German, but certainly lacks the pizzazz, energy, and excitement of our last expedition leader, Thorstein. Finally, there was a presentation on this leg's excursions by Raissa the Brazilian, who is always entertaining.

  

  

Monday, September 30, 2024: At Sea

Towel creation of the day: Snake. A working day for me, despite being a holiday for Truth and Reconciliation Day in Canada. I managed to do a fourth read-through of half of the latest novel I am translating and hope to finish it tomorrow, if all goes well. As I waited for my room to be vacuumed, I photographed these two brown boobies. I have seen them in other parts of the world, of course. I remember I got a very good shot from my cruise ship balcony while sailing between Singapore and Malaysia back in 2018. Wikipedia tells us that “the brown booby (Sula leucogaster) is a large seabird of the booby family Sulidae, of which it is perhaps the most common and widespread species. It has a pantropical range, which overlaps with that of other booby species. The gregarious brown booby commutes and forages at low height over inshore waters. Flocks plunge-dive to take small fish, especially when these are driven near the surface by their predators. They nest only on the ground, and roost on solid objects rather than the water surface.”

  

I attended the captain's cocktail party before dinner, where once again it was obvious he was not very comfortable speaking in front of people and had trouble finding the right words to say, though this must be the third time he has given the same speech on this voyage. However, the introduction to the new expedition crew by the Expedition leader, Fred, went very well. After dinner, I watched a pre-recorded presentation on Hurricanes by a new young English scientist, which was probably the best presentation I have heard on board so far. She spoke very clearly, using simple language we could all understand, and had a definite division of sections, including a conclusion. I will definitely congratulate her when I next see her. I then went upstairs to listen to a short presentation on seafaring superstitions by a new young Scottish expedition crew member and then a presentation by two young ladies on music in the Caribbean. Both presentations were very interesting. During all three presentations, I knitted, using some wool I had purchased in Corner Brook, and managed to make a rather long section, which I intend to integrate into the pole-to-pole blanket somehow.

Tuesday, October 1, 2024: At Sea

Towel creation of the day: Two mice created from face cloths. It is October already and we have just over (only) a month to go on this trip, which seems too short. I did manage to work on the second half of the fourth read through of my book translation today and got some more of the blanket squares sewed in. I also watched a lecture on the Seabirds of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean in the morning from my cabin TV and as a result expect to see lots more brown- and black-footed Boobies. In the afternoon, I watched another lecture on the dangerous animals in the sea, which we all thought was a bit over the top in that someone watching it and not already a connoisseur of the ocean through swimming, snorkelling, or scuba diving, might be afraid to enter the sea at all. Before dinner, we had another meet-and-greet over cocktails with the expedition team and the new leader, Fred, a Portuguese/German living in Denmark, came to talk to me and naturally we talked about languages and working on cruise ships.

Wednesday, October 2, 2024: Belize City, Belize (17.5046° N, 88.1962° W)

Towel creation of the day: The two mice became two chicks today. We anchored out in the water again today and took a local tender (a catamaran, hence the local man sitting in the front, in my photo) into the busy cruise port of Belize City. The younger man demonstrating the lifejackets kept up the level of enthusiasm by telling us to Belize (believe), which I noticed was the country's (touristic) slogan. Belize City is the largest city in Belize by population (61,461 according to the 2010 census) but not currently the capital city of the former British Honduras as that was transferred to Belmopan, inland, in 1970. Belize City was founded in 1638 by British lumber harvesters due to its supply of mahogany, and consequently, a mahogany tree appears in the country's flag. St. John's Cathedral is the oldest Anglican Church in Central America and one of the oldest buildings in Belize (though I did not visit it), its claim to fame being that it is the only Anglican cathedral in the world outside England where the crowning of kings took place. The descendants of the slaves brought here by the British in the 1700s are vernacularly called Garifuna, but more exactly Garinagu, which is the plural form, Garifuna being the singular form. The country of Belize is the least populated (and the least densely populated) country in Central America with about 400,000 inhabitants.

  

  

  

  

The Mayan civilization spread into the area of Belize between 1500 BC and AD 300 and flourished until about 1200, while European contact began in 1502-04, when Christopher Columbus sailed along the Gulf of Honduras. European exploration was begun by English settlers in 1638. Spain and Britain both laid claim to the land until Britain defeated the Spanish in the Battle of St. George's Caye (1798). It became a British colony in 1840, and a Crown colony in 1862. Belize achieved its independence from the United Kingdom on September 21, 1981. It is the only mainland Central American country within the British Commonwealth. The main language is English as a result of its history, despite being surrounded by Spanish-speaking countries, although Creole is considered the lingua franca here. Our tour guide also spoke a little Spanish (with a very good accent I might add), but she spoke a Mayan language as her mother tongue as well as Creole, which sounded more like Pidgin English (Spoken very quickly, it was intelligible to me.) According to Google, Belize Creole or Kriol developed during the time of slavery, and historically was only spoken by former enslaved Africans. It became an integral part of the Belizean identity, spoken by about 45% of Belizeans. Derived mainly from English, its substrate languages are the Native American language Miskito, and various West African and Bantu languages, native languages of the enslaved Africans. Creoles (the people) are found all over Belize, but predominantly in urban areas such as Belize City. Although education in Belize is compulsory between the ages of 6 and 14 years, as of 2010, the literacy rate in Belize was estimated at 79.7%, one of the lowest in the Western Hemisphere.

  

  

  

Our included tour today was to the ancient ruins of Mayan temples at Altun Ha, which is Mayan for 'rockstone water.' I was interested to visit because my father had been at this very temple in 1989. At the time, he was the same age as I am now (give or take a few months), and also visited a couple of other Belizean Mayan temples, one on horseback, while he was here for two weeks as a volunteer doctor, caring for people in remote villages at one-day clinics, at which he would see dozens of patients per day. (Belize has a high prevalence of communicable diseases such as respiratory diseases and intestinal illnesses.) My own history with Belize is that I was here in 2001, but the group I was with merely passed through Belize City to take a boat over to Ambergris Caye, which I remember as being a type of paradise. I also remember writing my diary whilst sipping a very thick mango smoothy and describing said smoothy. Our comfortable bus ride took about an hour to go 50 kilometres (31 mi) northward. The ancient site of Altun Ha did not come to the attention of archaeologists until 1963. The excavation was commenced in 1964 until 1970 by an archaeological team led by Dr. David Pendergast of the Royal Ontario Museum. The largest of Altun Ha's temple-pyramids is 16 metres (52 ft) high, and a drawing of it appears on the label of Belize's beer, Belikin. The greatest find was a carved jade head of the Sun god, Kinich Ahau (or perhaps instead the Jester god), measuring 14.9 cm in height and 45.9 cm in circumference, and weighing 4.42 kg. A replica of it appears among my photos here. The original is kept in a modern Bank of Belize building in Belize City, built in a shape resembling the temple in which it was found. It is believed that the jade did not originate here, but was traded for something else, and probably originated from another country, possibly Guatemala.

  

  

  

When we arrived at the Altun Ha site, our bus was divided into two groups, and each group was assigned a local guide. Our guide, Gilroy, gave us an historical explanation using photos and pictures printed on 8.5 x 11 inch paper and laminated, but I'm afraid I was more intent on trying to capture photos of butterflies (here a white peacock butterfly), flowers, etc. We were given the chance to climb two of the temples, the smaller rain temple, and the taller sun temple. Just as I had reached the top of the former, a deluge of rain tumbled down, and, as a result, I got drenched as I carefully descended what had now become potentially slippery stone steps. Then, once we were all gathered under a not-very-protective tree, I took my umbrella out of my bag, but it was really too late. Luckily, the downpour was short, and by the end of the tour we were sort of somewhat drier from the hot sun, which reappeared. I decided not to climb the taller temple as a result, though as one of our group pointed out, it serves us right for trying to disturb the rain god whose temple it was. Perhaps we'd have had better luck climbing the sun temple instead. This tiny Central America toad (yes, not a very original name) was found among the grass. On my way out, I stopped, inevitably, at the numerous souvenir stalls, and all three of the vendors whose photos I requested to take were very happy to pose for me. I also bought a magnet and a bracelet at two of them. We then ate our packed lunch from the ship in the bus as we drove back to Belize City. The tour over, we were left free to wander as it was now about 1:00 p.m., and local tenders back to the ship were available to us at a rate of one per hour until 6:15 p.m.

  

  

  

I walked along the coastal road and managed to capture a few instances of wildlife, including laughing gulls, a great-tailed grackle, a sandwich tern, a spotted sandpiper, brown pelicans, a black spiny-tailed iguana, and Magnificent frigates as well as a turkey vulture. I also wandered through the shops, whose prices were all marked in USD, although Belize also has a dollar currency, where two Belizean dollars are equal to one American dollar. I picked up a couple of inexpensive t-shirts with the words Belize in them ('You Better Belize It' and 'Unbelizeable'). I also passed by one of the bars on the quay to photograph the aforementioned local beer. Then, as it had been a hot day, I came back on board around 5:00 p.m., had a shower, and sat on my balcony overlooking the turquoise-coloured Caribbean Sea, and broke open the Iceberg beer I had been given in Red Bay, Labrador, three weeks ago today, and which I had been keeping in my fridge for a hot day. During dinner, it was announced that the Pole to Polers would have a special meeting. So we all went to that and learned that we would not be able to stop in Ecuador on our way south, as all the travel advisories (of the USA, the UK, and Germany, at least) were advising against visiting any coastal towns, although the airport cities and the Galapagos were still considered safe. Instead, we will be visiting another island in Panama on the Pacific Ocean side. We were informed that we would also miss one place in Peru for no apparent reason. Hopefully, there will be more onboard credits to compensate.

  

  

  

 

Thursday, October 3, 2024: Guanaja, Honduras (16.4827° N, 85.8793° W)

No towel creation today because I changed cabins, as someone had booked the one I am currently in for the Colón to Valparaíso leg, and I had put my Do Not Disturb sign on my door in anticipation of the move. Two expeditions by zodiac today at Guanaja, one of the Bay Islands of Honduras. I had been to the biggest of these islands, Roatan, via Princess Cruises in December 2014. Guanaja lies about 70 kilometres (43 mi) off the north coast of Honduras, and 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) from the island of Roatan. One of the cays off Guanaja, also called Guanaja or Bonacca or Low Cay (or just simply, The Cay), is near the main island, and contains most of the approximately 5,538 people who live in Guanaja. The densely populated cay has been described as the Venice of Honduras because of the waterways that run through it, although it is clearly not a rich as Venice by any means. Many of the houses, on stilts, as we approached were missing roofs, because in late October 1998, most of the buildings and homes on the island were destroyed by Hurricane Mitch. The islanders have since rebuilt, and although there are still repercussions to the economy from Mitch, tourism has been recovering. The majority of the mangrove and pine forests, which were destroyed as a direct consequence of the passage of the hurricane sweeping across the island for two days, are slowly making a comeback.

  

  

  

  

  

The Caracol are an English-speaking people, who have been established in Northern Honduras (specifically in the Bay Islands) since the early 19th century and are mainly of African descent with some European mixture. They are originally migrants from the English-speaking Caribbean who came to work on the construction of railroads as well as on banana plantations for the United Fruit Co. Caracol is a Spanish term that literally translates as conch, snail or shell, and relates the people of the Bay Islands to their unique environment and their seafaring culture. English is the first language of all native islanders, regardless of race, and Spanish is spoken second, whereas mainland Honduras is primarily Spanish speaking. This comes as a result of the island's past as a British colony. Because of the tourism and cruise ship industry that support the islands, English continues to be the first spoken and dominant language among native island peoples.

  

  

  

  

  

Although we traveled on the ship's zodiacs, we had youngish locals with us to guide us, one per zodiac. However, ours did not say much, and only when we asked her questions. Moreover, she usually only provided us with yes or no answers. She seemed happier to speak Spanish (with me when I asked) than English. Our zodiac route took us through a canal in the aforementioned main densely populated island, and to a different land mass containing another canal, this time, with mangroves to either side. It was disheartening to see that these mangroves were chockablock full of garbage, plastic waste for the most part, and likely washed up from various storms. There were also a number of shipwrecks and rusting boats visible in the water. A little blue heron was the only sign of birdlife on the ground, although vultures and frigates were flying overhead. Our challenge was that on our way to the mangroves, the engine on our zodiac broke down. Help was called for and two of the expedition team arrived on another zodiac and had us all change boats in midstream, as it were. This meant twisting round and hefting our legs over two sets of inflated sides. Luckily, the two expedition members were still in the replacement zodiac ready to pull us into said boat so that we would not fall into the potential space between the two floating vehicles, though they were tightly pushed together. Passengers on yet a third boat were waiting with us, and the entire boat-change operation was duly documented by various iPhones. On our way back to the ship, the same thing happened, clearly driver error, but this time, the driver let out some of the air in the tube connecting the gas tank to the engine and that seemed to do the trick. It is possible, that the problem arose from the temperatures being too high as I noted a couple of other zodiac consequently stopping and being restarted. I was henceforth wondering at every little bump and knock from then on and was very grateful to step off the zodiac at the end of our extended trip (due to the delay) and go up to lunch on the ship.

  

  

  

  

  

After lunch, we got back on zodiacs again and were transported to Graham's Place on Johne's Cay, a place clearly for tourists, with a bar, a beach, a volleyball net, flush toilets and more. I looked it up on the internet later and found the following advertising: “Bathed by the turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea lies an enchanting and unspoiled, 7-acre private island paradise in Honduras affectionately called Graham's Place. In Guanaja, situated a few miles off the northeast coast of Honduras in the Bay Islands, this treasured boutique Caribbean resort captures the true essence of all that a tropical island getaway should be.”

  

  

  

  

  

Not interested in swimming, or snorkelling, or even stand-up paddleboarding, all of which were on offer, I wandered off and walked around the island, photographing more sea birds, fish, turtles and more. My bird photos include ruddy turnstones, brown penguins, a black-bellied plover, a flying long-tailed grackle and yellow warblers. Ending back at the main beach again, I noted a troop of Garinagu musicians and dancers about to give a performance. Consequently, I stayed around for that and photographed them. Then I went to the bar to photograph bottles of the local beer and joined a group of pole to polers, the ones I mostly hang around with, who were in the bar in the shade and experiencing a cooling breeze. Arriving back on the ship, I spent the next hour or so transferring my stuff from my suite to another one across the corridor. Earlier in the day, my cabin steward had offered to help me move, but by the time I was back on board, he was having his rest time, so I completed the move on my own. After dinner, I attended a lecture on mangroves and was happy to learn that many countries are restoring them after realising how important they are to the planet and aqua systems.

  

  

  

  

Friday, October 4, 2024: Bobel Cay drive by, Honduras (15.0833° N, 82.6666° W)

Towel creation of the day: Penguin. Of course, we are not yet in Antarctic waters but will be sooner than we realize. After photographing visiting masked boobies (Sula dactylatra), accompanied by a couple of brown ones, which I did not photograph, I got to work on my photographs from the last two landings. We were planning to visit Bobel Cay in Honduras today, a long Honduras-vs-Nicaragua-disputed tiny island in the middle of nowhere, however, we learned at our information meeting last night that although 24 months ago the request had begun for our ship to visit this island, and permission had been granted, apparently, sometime yesterday, when double-checking, the ship was told by the Honduran Navy that pirates were active in the area. So, much to our regret, the idea to visit it via zodiacs had to be abandoned, and we could only sail by it (at some distance, mind you). You will see a view of it captured with my long lens around noon today as well as a small boat full of possible pirates?? To compensate for missing it, the ship hosted a pirate party around the swimming pool complete with a tug-of war between the expedition team and the passengers and judged by the captain, who was unrecognizable to me, in a torn and bloody shirt and bearing a very large cutlass. The passengers won. We were also offered water-paint tattoos.

  

  

  

  

 

Saturday, October 5, 2024: Isla Providencia, Colombia (13.3540° N, 81.3721° W)

Towel creation of the day: Rabbit. And here we were in Colombia, yet, in the middle of the Caribbean Sea off the shores of Nicaragua. As there was no included guided tour today, I looked up some information about the island on Wikipedia. “Isla de Providencia, historically Old Providence, and generally known as Providencia or Providence, is a mountainous Caribbean island that is part of the Colombian department of the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina, or the Raizal Islands, and the municipality of Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands, lying midway between Costa Rica and Jamaica.

  

  

  

Providencia's maximum elevation is 360 metres (1,180 ft) above sea level. The smaller Santa Catalina Island to the northwest is connected by a 100-metre (330 ft) footbridge to its larger sister Providencia Island. As Providencia Island has an area of 17 square kilometres (6.6 sq mi), the two islands cover an area of 22 square kilometres (8.5 sq mi) and form the municipality of Santa Isabel, which at the Census of 2005, had a population of 4,927.

  

  

  

... The island was the site of an English Puritan colony established in 1629 by the Providence Island Company, and was taken by Spain in 1641. Forts and cannons dating back hundreds of years can be found scattered all over Santa Catalina Island.

  

  

  

In November 2020, Hurricane Iota directly [hit] the island. An estimated 98% of all infrastructure was destroyed from the impact, making it one of the worst and strongest tropical cyclones to impact Colombia. Although the island is part of Colombia, its inhabitants are reported to feel more Caribbean than Colombian, with many Rastafari. They mostly speak English or San Andrés-Providencia Creole, an English-based creole similar to Belize Kriol and Jamaican Patwa, rather than the Spanish of Colombia, as well as Provisle, an indigenous sign language. So far, they have tried to preserve their heritage.

  

  

  

As of 2015, the island was not seriously affected by the drug trafficking of Colombia, but many islanders were recruited to work for traffickers due to their seafaring skills and knowledge of the waters of the area and to the scarcity of other employment opportunities on the island. It was estimated that about 800 young men out of the island's small population were in prisons abroad or had disappeared.

  

  

  

... A local population of black land crabs is noteworthy for its breeding migration, which occurs every April/May. These crabs live in the hills of the island and descend en masse to the sea once a year to lay their eggs.

  

  

  

Providencia is the centre point of the UNESCO Marine Protected Area the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve, which forms 10% of the entire Caribbean Sea. This ecologically important reserve contains some of the world's greatest marine biodiversity, and incorporates the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina.”

  

  

  

We were transported to the island of Providencia via zodiacs and met by musicians and dancers performing on the quay. Given plenty of time to discover the island, I first walked over the aforementioned footbridge to Catalina Island, meeting and greeting a few locals along the way, as I tend to do, and headed toward the point where there was a long staircase leading to a promontory, on top of which sat a statue of the Virgin Mary. Descending an equally steep staircase on the other side brought me to a small pebbly beach, and I was told there was a not-very-defined path through the woods at the far end of the beach leading to a fort. However, the woods were full of mosquitoes and the path looked slippery, so I retraced my steps and walked, photographing, to the other end of the coastal path, to a large, rusted cannon on top of which sat a large black spiny-tailed iguana. There were masses of tiny crabs scurrying into holes, one type with a massive left hook and the others larger and black and red.

  

  

  

Perhaps I should list some of the birds and animals I captured digitally in their order of appearance, should you be interested: white-crowned pigeon, green iguana, least sandpiper, black spiny-tailed iguana, magnificent frigates, grey kingbird, white-winged dove, green ameiva lizard, smooth-billed ami and grey ameiva lizard. I then walked back over the bridge to Providencia Island and turned left where some type of party was going on for a group of school-aged children. Finally, I ascended to the main streets, where the church and town hall were located, and carried on up the road, which was full of busy motorcyclists and bicyclists, to photograph more flora and fauna, as well as mosaics. After spending about three hours walking in the sun, I decided I'd had enough and had seen everything I could within the town limits. I arrived back on board for lunch, after taking a hot shower and changing clothes, and attended the local show of five musicians and seven dancers, who had been brought onto the ship for our pleasure. They performed some traditional dances in long, staid dresses first, and then returned in more flowery, Caribbean costumes, whilst the musicians played and sang in English. I was of course photographing everything, and one of the young ladies invited me to get up and join her in some simple steps. The dancing over, we then got to look at the instruments the musicians had been playing. Apart from a mandolin, a guitar, and maracas, there was also a drum constructed from a wash tub, a pole and a string, and another percussion instrument, which was actually the jawbone of a female horse. Looking at said jawbone, I was able to note that it had 6 front teeth and 24 bicuspids, 12 on each side. It was the rattling of these 24 bicuspids, encased in their grooves, that created the interesting percussive sound. We were told that this type of instrument is used only in Colombia and Panama, and is rare at that, as you had to wait to get a dead horse with good dental structure! The day ended with a beautiful, Caribbean sunset.

  

  

  

 

Sunday, October 6, 2024: Escudo de Veraguas, Panama (9.0947° N, 81.5569° W)

Towel creation of the day: Puppy. Very cute. I asked specially to keep it by my mirror for the rest of the trip' “Isla Escudo de Veraguas is a small (4.3 km2) isolated Caribbean island of the Republic of Panama. Despite its name, it is not part of the province of Bocas del Toro and located about an hour away from Rio Caña, an Indigenous Ngäbe-Buglé community that is part of a recently established tourism network in Panama. It contains 11 ha (27 acres) of mangrove forest and 100 ha (250 acres) of coral reef with 55 types of coral. It houses over 11,000 species. Although located only 17 km from the coastline in the Golfo de los Mosquitos and isolated for only about 9,000 years, several animals found on the island are distinct from their mainland counterparts, and two mammals are recognized as being endemic to the island: a subspecies of Thomas's fruit-eating bat and the pygmy three-toed sloth. These and the worm salamander (Oedipina maritima) are considered to be critically endangered due to their restricted range. Five other species of bat are found here, as is the armored rat, and Derby's woolly opossum.” Our likelihood of seeing bats, rats or opossums being difficult, we were nonetheless hoping we might spy a three-toed sloth (Bradypus pygmaeus). “The island has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports significant populations of white-crowned pigeons and rufous-tailed hummingbirds.”

  

  

  

  

“Escudo de Veraguas is traditionally considered the birthplace of the Ngöbe (or Ngäbe)-Buglé people. Until 1995, the island remained largely unpopulated, but since that time Ngöbe-Buglé fishermen from nearby coastal towns moved in, first using the island as a base for fishing parties and later settling permanently. In 2012, about 120 fishermen and their families were settled on the island ... Although closely associated and collectively referred to as the Guaymí, the Ngäbe and Buglé are two separate linguistic/indigenous groups whose languages are mutually unintelligible. The larger group, the Ngäbe, speak Ngäbere, while the smaller group, the Buglé, speak Buglére; both are members of the Chibchan language family. Collectively, these two groups make up the largest indigenous population in Panama. Note the difference in spelling of Ngäbe and Ngöbe; the two variations depend on local dialects. The vowel low-back-rounded sound indicated by äbe does not exist in Spanish and is confused with 'o'. (Since newspapers know the vowel should have a dieresis on it, they often misspell it as 'ö.') The sound represented by 'ä' is virtually similar to the sound 'aw' in the word 'saw.' The spelling Ngäbe, used here, is the more widely spread (correct) spelling is Ngäbere.”

  

  

  

  

“The Guaymí generally live in houses supported by sticks with a grass or zinc roof and dirt floor, [while] wealthier families may have a cement floor. In each house a platform under the roof is used for food storage and there are a number of raised bed platforms ... Guaymí men typically wear homemade multi-coloured pants, straw hats, and rubber boots, while women wear full bright coloured dresses with shoulder and neckline adornments (nagua) and embroidered bands around the waist and bottom. Women generally do not wear shoes. These items are usually made at home with hand crank sewing machines and, like chácaras, sold for extra income ... Families are usually rather large and often groups of women live close together so they can assist each other when caring for children. Polygamy was once common among the Ngäbe-Buglé as the number of wives and children a man has signifies prestige. It is no longer common since supporting multiple wives and large families is increasingly difficult.”

  

  

  

  

Our visit to this island and this indigenous community was two-fold today with a break back on the ship for a shower and a change of clothes. In the earlier section, our group went onto the island via zodiac to meet the villagers and watch two dancing groups perform traditional dances. The first group was one made up of six boys and six girls aged around 8 to 14. Lots of bare feet stamping was involved, and beats were bleated out by one boy using a conch shell. After they had completed about four dances, it was now another group's turn, this time about ten women and two men, who to my mind performed similar dances, but instead of being in groups of two (one girl and one boy), they performed in a line. There was also stamping of feet but no accompanying conch. A man, whom I guessed to be a tour guide for the region, and specialised in these indigenous peoples, called Gustavo, gave a presentation in English to explain the meaning of the dances. Then the first group of children performed again. At the end of their performance they were noticeably hot and perspiring and were offered water and raw pineapple to refresh themselves. We were then encouraged to buy some of the fibre and material bags the ladies had on display, and which they had no doubt made with two Singer sewing machines I saw in another hut, but I decided I did not need another bag. Furthermore, the bead earrings that another group was selling were not very original in my opinion.

  

  

  

  

When we were left free to wander, I went with the French couple to interpret for them and called in on and photographed a group of people in a hut with the very cute little boy seen posing in a hammock here. I asked questions of the man looking after the little boy who was proficient in Spanish. However, when I tried to talk to the children - the little boy here and those dancing - I did not seem to get through to them with my Spanish. When I asked Gustavo later why this was so, he said they mostly spoke the local Ngäbere language. The man I talked to in the hut explained that they came to stay at that spot on the beach from August to November and then from February to April to fish lobster. From what I could gather, they did not fish from boats but from the land. Another man was meanwhile pulling apart live lobsters, de-shelling them, and preparing them for a meal later. Meanwhile, the two women I saw (as the other men and kids were just sitting around under the shade of the hut) were busy washing things in buckets. When I explained to the man that we were on our way to Colón tomorrow and then would be crossing the Canal, he told me he had been to both places before. However, when I explained our entire route and how long we'd been away, he seemed quite surprised. His main question to us was when we would be back and I'm afraid my answer was: probably never as this was a very out-of-the-way place for us visitors. Next, I wandered along the beach looking for birds and flowers to photograph. I eventually hope to get a list of the ones you see here from our resident ornithologist. Most of the other passengers chose this time to swim and snorkel in the sea.

  

  

  

  

Our second visit, which for our group was closing in on the end of the solar day, took us in local boats with benches around the island and into mangrove groves. As always, moving vessels are always tricky for photographing, and our local drivers spoke not a word to us, so it was difficult to tell what they were slowing down to show us. Luckily, we had an ornithologist from the ship with us (although officially he was on holiday) and with his young eyes was able to point out a few birds, hence the juvenile brown booby here, and the bird of prey to be identified silhouetted in the dead tree. However, the pièce de résistance for today was, in fact, a pygmy three-toed sloth as mentioned a few paragraphs ago. Although found by our driver, other boats quickly arrived to crowd around us. I had difficulty seeing it at first, not realizing that it was in fact the object right inside the mangroves that I had taken for a pile of dead leaves. Trying in vain to focus my lens on it using manual focus and failing, I asked the driver to go back in and one of the other locals actually climbed inside the mangrove to clear the branches away so we could all see the animal much more clearly. Finally, I was able to see its face and frankly it did not seem to me to be that much smaller than the sloths I've seen and photographed on other tours ... in Costa Rica, perhaps. However, compared to the shots I saw others come away with, I was very pleased with mine, given the circumstances of how well hidden and camouflaged it was. Another excellent day all told with both difficult-to-find animal life, and some good close ups at that, and very friendly and welcoming children and adults in traditional costume. In the evening, we had our captain's farewell cocktail and had to say good-bye to our young and handsome captain though nothing was done to tell us who of the expedition team was leaving so we pole-to-polers were a bit disappointed at that. We all then watched the end-of-leg video by Oscar Ferrara, our ship's photographer, which I will post below as soon as it is ready on YouTube.