The Living Journey

A highlight of the island of Curaçao is its capital city of Willemstad. This UNESCO World Heritage site is best known for its candy-colored Dutch colonial architecture, multicultural neighborhoods, and stunning national parks. We walked from the pier adjacent to the city and had a chance to look at Rif Fort,

The port city of Manta (north of Guayaquil) is one of Ecuador’s largest cities. While it is primarily a seaport – home to the country’s major tuna fishing fleet – Manta is also a center for the chemical industry.

At the end of February 2022, we began another journey as we continue exploring and photographing the world by sea. We flew from the United States to Pape’ete, Tahiti where our first night was spent at the delightful Intercontinental Hotel near the Pape’ete airport before heading to the Ship the next morning for a nasal swab PCR COVID-19 test (a requirement before boarding).

Off the southern coast of Spain on the island of Mallorca, the city of Palma de Mallorca delivers breezy Mediterranean scenery, a plethora of art, perfect weather, Blue Flag beaches, and gastronomic surprises that have transformed this capital city into a year-round destination.

The last group of islands in Raja Ampat that we visited on the expedition was a day spent snorkeling, kayaking and Zodiac cruising around the islands of Misool, one of “The Four Kings” that are known as Raja Ampat.

On our first visit to Shanghai in 1995, our family visited the Jewish Ghetto of Shanghai with an English-speaking guide who gave us a very good overview of the history of the Jewish “stateless refugees” (predominantly from Germany and its neighboring countries) who arrived in the 1930s.

One of the great experiences on our Expedition through the Northwest Passage this summer was taking helicopter flights over regions that we sailed through. Our first flight was after our brief stop at Clyde River in southern Baffin Island in the territory of Nunavut,

Nuuk, Greenland marked the start of our Ship’s 24-day expedition to cross the Canadian Arctic region from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean on the so-called “Northwest Passage” – a dream of European (and Russian) governments and adventuresome sailors for five centuries.

Dartmouth, England, is a lovely resort town on the western side of the south coast of the English Channel, at the mouth of the River Dart (which gave the town its name), in South Devon. We anchored offshore, just beyond where the River Dart flows past the old fortified Dartmouth Castle as the River meets the English Channel. 

Jamestown, the capital of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha, is also the historic main settlement of Saint Helena Island in a V-shaped valley on its north-western coast; it is the island’s only port and the center of the island’s road and communications network
 

Restaurants line a street in Vegueta (Old Town), Las Palmas, the capital of Gran Canaria in the Canary Island
 
We embarked on this journey (heading down the west coast of Africa) in Las Palmas, Gran Cararia, Canary Islands (part of Spain) – our second visit there on the Ship in 2018.

Le Macchiole (winery) is in Bolgheri, Italy, on the Etruscan Coast — “in this magical place, where rolling hills are blanketed by forest, where vineyards and olive trees meet with the Tyrrhenian Sea”
 
From our dock in the port of Livorno,

City Hall dominates Piazza Municipio in Livorno, Italy, a port city that is regarded by many Ship passengers as the gateway to nearby Florence, but it has a history as a global trading port in the 17th century that resulted in its reputation as a multicultural city throughout Europe
 

Raudfjorden (The Red Fjord), Spitsbergen Island, Svalbard
 
After two days looking for wildlife in the Arctic Pack Ice north of Svalbard (setting a record for the furthest north the Ship has ever sailed — reaching Latitude 82º 41’ North and Longitude 022º 57.91’ East),

Arctic pack ice, north of Svalbard, at Latitude 82º 37’ with the forward section of deck 7 of our Ship (packed with viewers on the lookout for polar bears) visible at the bottom of the photograph
 
From Lilliehöökfjorden on the northwest side of Spitsbergen Island,