the queen travels: Ocean activities and camera issues

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day (March 17). We had an at-sea day, and were looking forward to corned beef and cabbage for either lunch or dinner. There was none to be had. What??? Oh well. Guess it was a good thing I didn’t have my heart totally set on it.

Never had a piece of it even.

There’s always plenty to do. Today we had a meeting with the Director of Customer Service to discuss our toilet problem from March 3. We might be old but for some things we have a very long memory. He was pleasant and our minds were finally set at ease for what happened. Now we wait.

So what else do we do while on board? Today was special with an Irish Jig dance class. I had a great time doing that and it was quite the workout, taking the place of part of the deck walking for the day. Otherwise, we do the port lectures and on the at-sea days we always play Bingo. We’re getting closer to winning the big bucks. Jaz has been within one number twice so far.

We've even won a few times.

Other days there have been runway shows with some passengers being the models for the clothing, and we’ve gone up to the Jacuzzi a number of times. We’ve also played cards a lot with friends and I always look forward to that. And we do a lot of the shows that vary from singing to comedy to dancing to musical. There’s hardly a dull moment, or time to take a nap.

The Jacuzzi is always fun when you're playing with an underwater camera.

On Wednesday, March 18, we landed at San Martin (Pisco), Peru. There are 31 million people in Peru, and there are 23 provinces. Founded in 1640, Pisco is the capital and has about 140,000 people. Of course one of their main crop is the grapes for the Pisco. Nope. Not trying it.

We’ve been told to be exceptionally careful here … dress conservatively, don’t wear expensive jewelry, keep mind of where you are and don’t stray from the usual tourist areas. We were not worried as we would be on an organized tour to Islas Ballestas, a small group of islands about 11 miles offshore that is a marine sanctuary and home to sea lions, a variety of birds and Humboldt penguins, which are endangered. We were sure looking forward to that as it’s called the Galapagos of Peru.

These were the speedboats we were using.

The rugged coastline is directly off of a first-class postcard, and we started seeing birds immediately. Okay, so they were pelicans. It doesn’t matter cuz they’re cool birds, and we just like seeing things.

Pelicans must be one of the homeliest birds ever.

We were also told we’d see the Candelabro, a 1,500 year old, three-pronged geoglyph etched into the sand, standing nearly 500 feet high and 164 feet wide. While some connect this with the Nezca Lines that are usually animal forms and best viewed from above, others argue that this was a navigational sign to guide ancient mariners. It was highly visible from the water and a very cool thing to see … but mostly we want birds and sea lions.

I'd like to see the others of these but that would involve a plane ride and we weren't set up to do that this time.

Out we went, our little speed boat skimming along the top of the calm water. It was a pleasant ride. Our driver slowed and we viewed the action of some anchovy fishermen. It was great as they were making a haul. What wasn’t so great for them were the sea lions circling around trying to get their catch for an easy meal.

Watching these guys get in their catch was fun but we had places to go.

We continued on with coastal arches in the rocks coming into view. We saw little islands, and as we got closer could hear a cacophony of noise … it made me think of the sirens from the movie, “Brother, Where Art Thou?” Except this wasn’t necessarily a pleasant sound.

There are colonies of up to 600,000 birds in this area, and we could see birds everywhere, flying over and around us, on the land, on the rocks, in the water … Inca terns, pelicans, gulls of various types, comorants.

The endangered Humboldt penguins were making quite fuss. It seems their beaks are never closed.

What wonderful sights awaited us as our driver got us into positions to see the best of what the islands had to offer.

Sea lions are pretty proud animals.

They're draped all over the rocks everywhere, and some don't seem exactly comfortable.

The little ones look like little slugs.

The good news is that there were hundreds of photo opportunities. The bad news is that I messed up my camera an didn’t get the best of the best, just mediocre and lots of things that were out of focus. Crap!!!

Slick and shiny, some have been out in the water with their mamas.

There were hundreds of them everywhere you looked.

And there's always a king and his lady.

We rode through one of the arches.

This was before I realized I had so many crappy photos.

As we arrived back at the ship the street vendors were all awaiting us. It appears they are given permission and probably pay a fee to set up here as they wear a security-style vest with identification cards. Works for me.