A TRANSATLANTIC CRUISE

When brother Chuck discovered this inexpensive "repositioning" cruise, we jumped at it. The attraction for us was many days at sea and few ports of call. Also, the cruise was not advertised in the US market so we were sure to be on board with lots of Europeans. We were not disappointed! Our ship had few Americans, many Germans, many Spaniards and lots of other nationalities represented. We met the retired Slovakian ENT surgeon, the couple from the UK living now in Panama, the tall woman from Munich, a couple from Finland, the son (lives in Atlanta) and Parisian mother, etc. We also met a young woman from our closest town at home - Sebastopol! She and her boyfriend had been traveling since August spending most of their time in Italy providing free labor in return for getting educated in Italian farming practices. Really, one of the most fun things on the cruise was meeting like-minded people, that is, folks who love to travel.

We had a lovely stateroom with a balcony adjoining Chuck and Nancy's room. We never did bother to unlock the connecting doors - we just leaned around our balcony dividers to talk. Here's the room that was home for two weeks:

We were excited to start our cruise, but reluctant to leave Palma de Majorca. Here's a last look at this lovely city from our stateroom balcony.



Next time we'll visit the castle on that hill. Our cruise left port at 5 pm, so we were treated to a great sunset view from our balcony not long after we set sail.



We were really hoping to see the green flash as the sun went down but it didn't happen this time or any other time on the cruise.

Our cruise started out with several lovely days at sea in the Mediterranean, some of them a bit rough. Jim and I are fortunate to have good sea legs so the roughness didn't bother us.

We were lucky to pass the rock of Gibraltar in daylight on day two, although the fog made it difficult to see clearly.


Next time, the Canary Islands.

Audrey