November 1&2 , 2026

After a successful Halloween Party last night we were ready to set foot on land today. The last 6 days we sailed from Hawaii Island to Avaturu French Polynesia. Today we have to take a tender to shore. I was prepared for a little bit of a line up to get on the tender boat, but it was actually organized not too badly.  Because today, the day after Halloween was a holiday in this country. They called it all Saints day. The result was that most places were closed today. The only places open were the vendors who had set up tables at the Pier selling handmade souvenirs and jewelry. The island was very narrow. Maybe 1/2 mile across. most people enjoyed the beaches. Because of the size of the island there were very few tours being offered, and they were all sold out. It was the same with the taxis, very few of them. So I decided to make  it a beach day also. It was good that I had brought extra water with me, because it was even hard to find a vendor selling drinks. After a few hours on the beach, I returned back to the main ship. By now the temperature had risen  to well above 30 deg Celcius. For the remainder of the afternoon I ended up taking an unscheduled 2hr nap.

Huahine

This morning we anchored in a bay near the Island of Huahine. This is also one of the smaller islands. For the last few days I had been on a standby list for the shuttle bus into town. All the tours were booked up and almost no taxis available. At the end no spots on the bus became available. Because this was only a half day stop, I decided to stay on board for today. I took my time having breakfast and then spent a few hours at the fitness center. For the afternoon I did some writing on the blog and watching Monday night football.

Cheers

Cor

October 25, 2026

This morning we anchored off in the bay near Kona. I didn’t wake up till 8 am. I got partially woken up by the lowering of the life boats. I would say the cables to lower them can use a little grease. (pretty noise) There was  no reason to rush for me, because I didn’t have to go on a tour anywhere. After breakfast I got myself to the tender platform for the 10 minute boatride over to the shore. We arrived pretty well right at  main street in the heart of the Historic Kailua village. This is also the start and finish of the famous Kona Iron Man triathlon.The street is lined with small coffee shops and stores. No Starbucks here, just the small shops selling the well known Kona brand coffee, grown and roasted right here on the island. There are a few old churches on Main Street. After entering a passageway to the foreshore, I ended up on a nice grassy field overlooking the ocean. A nice spot to sip on my flat white. A church service was also going on in one corner of the field. The singing and guitar play was mostly crowded out by the waves crashing into the shore. After I finished my coffee I continued on down the street.  I walked by this enormous banyan tree stretching all the way across the street. Apparently this tree wasn’t near the size as the one they took down recently. It had shown signs of decay, after a large limb had fallen on the road. That tree was over 140 years old. My next venture was to find the Kona brewery.  After tracking down through a few side streets I noticed the sign. Here at the brewery I consumed a nice Longboard Lager with an order of chicken wings. I have to say that Micro Brewery beer tastes so much better than the commercially produced beers. After my beer break I ventured off back towards the water. After spending time in a comfy beach chair, I got onto the tender boat back to the ship. The remainder of the afternoon I decided to make a visit to the fitness center. For the next 6 days we are at sea before we arrive in Avaturu, Rangiroa, French Polynesia.

Cheers

Cor

October 24, 2026

Today we are on the second largest island of the Hawaiian Islands, called Maui. The weather looked overcast this morning, with a chance of showers this afternoon. For today I had booked a tour to go up Mount Haleakala. This is a dormant Volcano with the Volcano rim at approximately 10,000 ft. The last known eruption was around the year 1600. Instead of my usual attire of shorts and t-shirt,I chose for the layers approach to be prepared for much lower temperatures on top. Instead of the usual large busses, we used much smaller ones to deal with the numerous switch backs on the road, to the point that they warned us for motion sickness. At 3000 ft. we pulled into a parking lot with a convenient store and restrooms. We would stop for 30 min. to give us a chance to get used to the elevation. Soon as we had stopped everybody ran for the restroom. I figured to do the coffee stop first. After 10min. I figured it was my turn for the restroom. When i headed up there there were stills a dozen people lined up. Apparently there was only 1 single bathroom stall for everyone. By the time it was my turn the bus driver was waiting for me and told me to hurry up. Next time I will look for a large tree instead. The next stop was at 7000ft. Another 1/2 hr. stop. I noticed  the thin air and getting a little bit light headed. While we were waiting around, a couple of Hawaiian goose came to greet us. Apparently they are related to the Canada goose. here we also saw a plant called Silversword, apparently this is the only place this plant grows. After our 1/2 hr stop was up, we got back on the bus for our last segment to the rim. During the ride up, the landscape changed from lush green to a landscape of volcanic rock. When we got off the bus, we walked the last couple hundred meters up to the rim, where we could look over the edge into the inside. We stayed on top for about 45 min. I sure was glad, that I brought extra clothes. I definitely could notice the high altitude here. I can’t remember that I was ever up to an elevation this high. After we were back on the bus , we drove without any stops back to the Port. By now it was after 2 and it was pissing rain. As I wasn’t in need of any supplies, I decided not to walk into the Town.

Cheers

Cor

October 22, 23, 2026

I forgot to mention yesterday, that this is my first visit to Hawaii. From the nice quiet stop we had yesterday in Kauai, to today’s hassle and bussle of the big City. we arrived early this morning on Pier 2 at the Honolulu Cruise Terminal. For today I had booked a tour to Pearl Harbor. I had to go on the standby list for the USS Arizona tour. I was lucky, I got a text to get myself to the boat ramp for the boat ride over to the memorial. It felt kind of emotional to stand above the wreckage of the ship with the corpses of around 900 sailers still inside. There is a wall with all the names of the sailers listed. As recent as 2021 names are added to that list from the original survivors having their ashes placed inside the ship’s wreckage. to be buried with their comrades. After the boat ride back we boarded the bus for our ride over to the USS Missouri, which was turned into a museum after its retirement from active duty as a battleship The first thing noticeable are the enormous 16 inch guns on the front and back of the ship. I had a chance to go into the inside of the ship, basically a web of corridors from living quarters to offices. It is very easy to get totally lost down there. Eventually I was able to find my way to the outside and barely made it back to the bus on time. Our last item for the day was a drive by the famous cemetery called the Punch bowl. It was quite the sight looking at nearly 30,000 grave stones, remembering the fallen soldiers . Our next stop was back at the Pier. At night we had a performance of a group of local Hawaiian dancers in the ship’s theater. This was the end of a very good Hawaiian day.

For day 2, I got myself an Uber and headed towards Waikiki Beach. After about half an hour I arrived at the beach. I was surprised how crowded it was this early on the beach. The water was filled with surfers. In short, a very popular place. I just can’t imagine how busy the weekends would be on this beach. After spending nearly an hour in the sun, it was time to find some shade. The boulevard is lined with well-known stores and restaurants. After some window shopping I treated myself to a flat white with a slice of banana bread. After having consumed that treat It was time to order myself an Uber to get me back to the terminal. For the remainder of the afternoon I write more on the blog and cought some of the world series.

Cheers

Cor

October 21, 2026

After 5 days at sea we hit land this morning. Soon as I had finished breakfast I boarded  the hop on hop off bus. Besides the scenery from the bus, It was a little disappointing. There was still a lot of clean-up going on from the latest Hurricane. Several of the stops were not fully open for the tourist yet. It was not all bad, we had beautiful views of the Ocean. When we returned to the terminal i hopt onto the shuttle bus into the local town. There were several stores, restaurants and a beautiful surf beach. I stopped at a food truck and had musabi, this is basically a large Susi. rice with spam wrapped in seaweed. It is a local specialty and it was surprisingly good.After having spent some time, I took my time walking back to the terminal. After I had returned back onto the boat I got myself a Rotterdam 1873 coffee and started writing more Spam for you guys.

Cheers

Cor

October 20, 2026

The last 4 days we have been sailing west towards Kauai Hawaii. I am looking forward to seeing land tomorrow morning. In the last 4 days I kept myself busy with the fitness center in the morning or walking the outside prominade (3.5 laps is 1 mile) and writing this blog, participating in the odd game and Happy Hour at 5. Days go by quickly. There are shows and music venues pretty well every night. Everyday I am noticing, that the early morning temperature are getting warmer. Pretty soon I should be able to have breakfast outside. We have a fantastic lecturer on board. Everyday he talks about the history of the South Pacific and Hawaii. His name is prof. William Beeman. They brought Hawaiian musicians on board, who are performing every afternoon. No shortage of things to do. Yesterday they offered a Rijsttafel lunch, it was a great selection of Indonesian foods. I definitely needed a nap afterwards. That’s about all I can think of. The next post will come from land, looking forward to it.

Below I include a few pics from SD. I realized I forgot to include them.

Cheers

Cor

October 15, 2026

Good morning, the last 3 days we spent at sea, cruising towards San Diego. On the first seaday the captain announced at noon, that there would be free drinks for the whole ship between 4 and 5, because we missed Mazatlan. No surprise, everybody was ordering doubles. My cough started to get very annoying, to the point that I confined myself yesterday in my cabin to rest and sip on tea and honey most of the day. For dinner I ordered from room service a large bowl of hot chicken soup and had an early night.

This morning I felt much better and went for an early breakfast. During breakfast we docked at the Pier in San Diego. Soon as the ship was cleared by customs I headed into Town. The weather forecast for today was very hot with a high of 33 Celcius. This time of the morning it was quite pleasant out. I ventured out towards Downtown.  I took a slightly different route than a week ago. I made time for a coffee break at a nice little bakery. Eventually I ended up on the waterfront. While walking along the waterfront, I kept my eyes open for a drugstore to restock my supply of cough candies and meds. I did find a drugstore and got my meds and also got chips and a large bag of Halloween candy to hand out to the crew. I ended up back on the waterfront walking pad and continued on. I was taking several rest stops and just took in all the activities in the harbour. The water was very calm, just a very beautiful morning. I ran into a person who was racing his miniature battery powered car on the walking pad. It ended up being chased by a dog who was ready to take a bite out of this little car. This scene carried on, till a security guard shut the game down. I ended up near the cruise terminal and made a stop at the Wyndham Hotel. From a previous visit at this hotel, I remembered that they made a decent breakfast. The Wyndham is in a very convenient location if you are catching a cruise in SD. After my second breakfast today, I started making my way to the terminal to get checked in. For the afternoon I settled near the pool in the sunshine and monitored all the new guests coming onto the ship. Apparently the cruise was totally sold out. By 5 PM we set sail, slowly leaving the port heading West into the Pacific.

Cheers

Cor

October 11, 2026

G’day. I actually should say Bueno Dia. It was mid morning when we docked in the port of Pichilingue, about 35 min by bus to get to LA Paz Pichilingue is the Port for the City of La Paz. It is also the ferry terminal for transportation to mainland Mexico. As I had been here in the spring of this year, I didn’t feel like sitting on the bus for over half an hour. Also, it felt like my scratchy throat started to turn into a full blown cold. That’s the sign of your body telling you to take it easy. I did get off the boat and wandered around the port checking out all the stalls set up by local vendors selling souvenirs etc. One very persistent vendor managed to sell me a new hat for my ever growing collection. After about an hour I returned back to the boat. For my lunch I had tacos and salsa, I figured that was fitting for my Mexican visit today. For the remainder of the afternoon I settled in a comfy chair on the back deck enjoying the sun. Instead of 2 Seadays, now we had  3 Seadays ahead of us because of the cancellation of The Port of Mazatlan. That’s all for today folks!

Cheers

Cor

October 10, 2026

In the last 2 days we sailed from Sam Diego towards Cabo San Lucas on the Southern tip of the Baja in Mexico. We had a relatively smooth sailing with nice warm temperatures in the high twenties Celsius. We dropped anchor around noon in the bay in front of the “hole in the wall”. As I was considered a frequent cruiser, I was able to get to shore with the first tender boat. Today I was meeting up with Port Alberni resident Mr B. After weaving myself through a Hurd of local vendors, trying to sell me all kinds of stuff, eventually I ended up on the street. I had arranged for B to pick me up close to the bus stop. After we met we hadded off to the subdivision where he is building a new house. I was amazed to see how much work had been done in 10 weeks. After having shown me the building details.  we decided to go for lunch in a funky Roadhouse cafe. After our lunch and and a few cold Ultra’s Craig dropped me back off close to the port. I checked out some of the shops before I headed for my tender boat. When I got to the gate, there were 2 line ups 1 for the Royal Caribbean ship which was nearly 1/2 km. long and hardly moving.The other lineup was about 15 people. Sometimes it pays to cruise on a smaller ship. After we got on board, we were notified by the Captain, that our stop in Mazatlan was Cancelled because of Hurricane Simon. Tomorrow we have a scheduled stop in La Paz.

Cheers

Cor

October 3th, 2026

After being around the house for the summer we figured it would be time to get back on a ship. What better then just to leave from our home port Vancouver. On October 3th I boarded the float plane for Vancouver downtown.  Generally I like to leave a day before the actually departure day of the cruise. Luckily our 2:30 float plane departure was the first to depart that day. The earlier flights were all canceled due to fog. After my walk to the hotel next to the cruise terminal , I got checked into the room verily quickly. By this time I was getting very hungry. After I sat down in the hotel lounge  I got myself a nice pint of  IPA from a local brewery. For my late lunch I ordered some fish and chips (lingcod). I have to say this was one of the best fish I had in a long time. Deep fried to perfection.  After having consumed my late lunch,  I layed down for quick nap. By the time I woke up it was already dark and I figured  I better call’r the night.

The next day was departure day. After I checked out of the hotel, I started making my way towards the check in area for the Crùise ship. I got rid of my luggage very quickly on my way to check in and Customs. I am always surprised by the quick turnaround time of the ship. The boat had arrived  from an 8 day Alaska cruise at 7 am this morning, and they leť us board the ship by 11 am. The ship is called the Zaandam. This is a smaller ship of Holland America Line. Max passengers count only 1500. As it was, we only had 830 gast on board for our 4 day trip to San Diego. For a 26 year old ship, it is in a remarkable good condition. Definitely better than some previous ships I sailed on before. As being an older ship, it has a lot of nice woodwork in the hallways and public areas. 

Our cruise between Vancouver and San Diego is what is called a repositioning cruise. Moving from the summer Alaska runs towards  the Hawaiian and Caribbean runs for the winter season. No stops on this 4 day sailing. 

I filled my days with doing my 2 hr gym sessions in the morning with picking up the odd lecture in the afternoon. It was definitely to cool to sit on the outside deck. Not much for sun, just foggy and drizzly. 

It was also nice to meet up with some of the workers I had met on previous sailings. 

Looking forward to tomorrow’s stop in San Diego. 

Cheers.

                                                                         SAN DIEGO 

This morning I was up early enough to witness our sailing into the harbor of San Diego.  We docked beside another HAL ship called MS Eurodam.

It was very nice to see the sunrise above the highrises of the City. It was supposed to be a very warm day. They even had heat warnings out for today. After breakfast I got myself prepared to go on a long hike along the waterfront, trying to beat the heat by leaving early. Soon as the ship was cleared by customs, I went on shore. 

On the  other side of our ship was the now retired aircraft carrier the Uss Midway.

The Midway is now turned in a museum.  We visited the Midway on our previous visit to San Diego.  If your travels ever take you here in the future, I highly recommend you to take the ships tour.

The marinas are filled with a collection very pricey boats. At some point I came by the convention center,  very large building right on the water front. The locals were generally not to happy today, bcause their baseball team got knocked out of the playoffs. I was also on the look out for a foodstore , not many around in this part of town. Ater asking for some directions from some of the locals , i did find one. I was on the lookout for some spicy mayo and mustard for my late night snacks. 

By now the temperature must’ve been close to 30 C.  After nearly 12000 steps I figured it was time to had back to the ship and relax.

We departed around 5:00 pm.

Cheers.