Trip breakdown Part 3
Sailing the ocean blue (Obligatory subtitle)
The last time Barb and I went on a cruise was 2017. The ship was the Celebrity Reflection and it accommodated 3,000 passengers and displaced 125,000 tonnes. We liked it, Reflections was a nice ship with great amenities and really good food but we didn’t really like how big it was so, for the last 8 years, we have been talking about a small ship cruise on something that had sails.
This year we decided, almost spur of the moment, to go on a cruise on the Windstar Wind Surf, a ship about 10% the size of the Reflection, 12,000 tonnes and 330 passengers.
Cruising has pros and cons.
Pros:
Unpack once for the duration of the cruise.
Be at a new destination almost every morning.
Cons:
If we like a place we can’t stay longer and we are limited as to how much time we can spend in port.
If the sea is rough Chris may be found chumming the ocean with his dinner.
Rabbit Hole
For most of my life I had an iron stomach. I loved roller coasters and boats and had no trouble with either. Then, on one fateful day in 2000, I went out whale watching off the coast of Tofino. The sea was angry that day, my friends. The sky was a steel grey that seemed to melt into the ocean, the boat pitched and yawed and rolled, the whales breached and it was spectacular. At least that was how it was described to me since I spent most of the trip with my head over the gunwale, vomiting. It took 4 hours laying on a bed before the world stopped spinning. I will only ever feel empathy for anyone with motion sickness.
An unfortunate side effect is I can no longer go on rollercoasters without feeling nauseous.
End Rabbit hole
So the smaller boat was an experiment to see if I could handle the movement. As luck would have it we had amazing weather with calm seas. The only time ship movement was noticeable was the first night and it felt like being in a gentle hammock which made falling asleep easier.
We did take precautions, however. We took a cabin on the lowest passenger deck and near the middle of the ship, where movement would be less noticeable.
The cruise allowed us to knock a few things off our bucket list. Malta, Agrigento and Segesta were all places we wanted to see when we eventually visit Sicily by car and they were all on the cruise itinerary, so now we’ve freed up a few days to do other things when we go to Sicily.
Agrigento is known as the Valley of the Temples because, well it is a ridge, yes a ridge not a valley, with a lot of Greek temples.
Segesta is a Greek/Roman settlement nearish Palermo and Malta is the island nation of Malta, as in Knights of.
A definite highlight was spending a few hours watching Stromboli eruptions. An interesting thing we found out; people can hike up to the crater during the day and they hike down in darkness. We could watch the flashlights and headlamps moving down the mountain. Not sure I’d want to look into the mouth of an active volcano.
Another highlight was the interaction with the crew including the officers. The ship has an open bridge policy, as long as we weren’t entering or exiting port, passengers were allowed to enter the bridge and talk to the bridge crew. Combine this with just 6 passenger decks and it wasn’t unusual to see an officer or two and engage them in conversation. Passenger interaction and satisfaction were definitely a priority.
Ultimately the cruise was our favourite part of the trip. Even with the limits on how long we could be in each port it was relaxing, interesting and something we will do again but on an even smaller ship.
Now we have a decision to make, another cruise on a smaller ship or lease a car and continue our land adventures. Stay tuned.
I’m typing this on my phone in the badlands of Alberta, over three days so I take full responsibility for any typos, loss of focus and forgotten threads.
Till next time.