The Daily for Saturday September 18, 2021

[aliaschief]

2 minutes ago, ger_77 said:

Oh sweet Jesus, if I had an overnight at Half Moon Cay, I'd book one of the cabanas, or get together with another couple or two and book a villa, order dinner on the beach, and enjoy the night in a hammock!  Please let us know if this is real or just someone's idea of a joke.

 

Smooth Sailing!  🙂🙂🙂

Gerry

Real? Well it’s now our itinerary! You can’t make this stuff up. We did have a quick thought about what could they do for a special event ashore at night but that thought quickly diminished when we thought of tendering at night.

 

Earlier saw a You Tube news stream  about a couple who Hal failed to notify their Koningsdam cruise was cancelled out of San Diego. Holland America admitted error. They are struggling.

[St Pete Cruiser]

Another week is coming to a close.  The sun is shining here in St Petersburg with about 1 1/2 hours till sunset and it is a toasty 85F.  Autumn is yet to reach us, but I am ready!  

Williamstad has been a favorite port for many HAL cruisers over the years, with its Dutch connections.  A unique port with a river like entrance to a hidden water area, complete with Dutch architecture and a swinging bridge.  My first time there, and I realize that this makes me seem really old, was on the Oceanbreeze in 1993, almost 30 years ago!  The Oceanbreeze was built as the Southern Cross in 1955 by Harland and Wolf in Belfast.  It was part of the Dolphin Cruise Line, who operated several older ships in their later years of service.  I believe we docked near the swinging bridge.  I need Copper to insert her picture here!

 

[aliaschief]

22 minutes ago, St Pete Cruiser said:

Another week is coming to a close.  The sun is shining here in St Petersburg with about 1 1/2 hours till sunset and it is a toasty 85F.  Autumn is yet to reach us, but I am ready!  

Williamstad has been a favorite port for many HAL cruisers over the years, with its Dutch connections.  A unique port with a river like entrance to a hidden water area, complete with Dutch architecture and a swinging bridge.  My first time there, and I realize that this makes me seem really old, was on the Oceanbreeze in 1993, almost 30 years ago!  The Oceanbreeze was built as the Southern Cross in 1955 by Harland and Wolf in Belfast.  It was part of the Dolphin Cruise Line, who operated several older ships in their later years of service.  I believe we docked near the swinging bridge.  I need Copper to insert her picture here!

http://www.cybercruises.com/oceanbreeze.htm

http://www.cybercruises.com/oceanbreeze.htm

Edited September 18, 2021 by aliaschief

[1ANGELCAT]

NA now sailing 

[aliaschief]

1 hour ago, St Pete Cruiser said:

Another week is coming to a close.  The sun is shining here in St Petersburg with about 1 1/2 hours till sunset and it is a toasty 85F.  Autumn is yet to reach us, but I am ready!  

Williamstad has been a favorite port for many HAL cruisers over the years, with its Dutch connections.  A unique port with a river like entrance to a hidden water area, complete with Dutch architecture and a swinging bridge.  My first time there, and I realize that this makes me seem really old, was on the Oceanbreeze in 1993, almost 30 years ago!  The Oceanbreeze was built as the Southern Cross in 1955 by Harland and Wolf in Belfast.  It was part of the Dolphin Cruise Line, who operated several older ships in their later years of service.  I believe we docked near the swinging bridge.  I need Copper to insert her picture here!

 

Copper is a guy. Former Marine, Policeman and Retired Hal Security Officer. A true American Hero! Not to say a women could have also had a similiar background. 

Edited September 18, 2021 by aliaschief

[rafinmd]

6 minutes ago, aliaschief said:

Copper is a guy. Former Marine, Policeman and Retired Hal Security Officer. A true American Hero! Not to say a women could have also had a similiar background. 

I interpreted "Her" as referring to the Ocean Breeze.

 

Roy

[aliaschief]

7 minutes ago, rafinmd said:

I interpreted "Her" as referring to the Ocean Breeze.

 

Roy

Your absolutely right. My miss  read;  my bad Roy and Peter. Sorry.! Thanks.

Edited September 19, 2021 by aliaschief

[USN59-79]

Interesting day here today.  Sunshine this morning and then heavy rain starting in the afternoon.  It was useful, as I was working on my log home and I noticed that two gutters are needing to be replaced; one since a tree fell on it years ago and I ignored it, and not sure why the other isn't draining properly.  Noticed that our local guy Bruno got a diagnosis for his condition and it is usually easily cured with antibiotics, so that is good news.

Sara is making Taiwanese "wine chicken" tonight.  The wine used with it is actually gin.  We usually use cheap cooking gin, but she couldn't find it tonight, so we are substituting Bombay Sapphire.  Will be interesting if we can notice the difference.  Think I will do a taste test with a small shot glass of each to see if $30. gin is really better than $10. gin.  

Ray

[rafinmd]

On the way to the reunion I stopped at my primary elementary school.  It's near my hotel and opened the year I was in 3rd grade, so it's 70 years young now and looks great:

 

The reunion was at a place called Bella Domani, a nice banquet hall:

 

At the back of the room there was a big display with lots of memorabilia and photos.

 

There was a nametag for each of us including our senior yearbook photos:

 

On one side there was a far too large display of members who are no longer with us:

Earl has been organizing reunions every 5 years for at least 40 years and welcomed us and opened the buffet:

 

 

There was a nice buffet.  I didn't take everything but got a nice selection:

 

 

In the evening I could see the sun going down and went outside for a glimpse:

 

 

Just as it was starting to get dark I took a final little run for a treat.  Byrne Dairy is quite a venerable local dairy in the area that now runs a slew of convenience stores.  70 years later I still have a pretty good feel for their jingle:

 

 

Now that Inspiration 4 is on the ground I'll be getting to bed early.

 

Roy

[Tbay]

9 hours ago, smitty34877 said:

Today has been a hard  day for many reasons and it was a pleasure to "escape" to the Daily.

 

Just want to tell you how much I admire you for everything you have been doing for Tana and her son.  Please take care of yourself too.  I am sorry to hear it has been a hard day for you.

[erewhon]

Thanks for all the daily information, photos and humour.

@rafinmd Roy, thanks for reporting on your reunion. Safe travelling home.

@smitty34877sorry you had a hard day, hope tomorrow will be easier.

@mamaofamiCongratulations to you and Sam on your 62nd Anniversary.

@ger_77 lovely photos, you had a long day driving.

 

Yesterday CC would not allow me to respond to posts, or to post on the Daily thread.  Kept getting messages that NOT Logged On, even though I was  logged on.

Pleased that the gremlins of yesterday are not here today.

It's a  gray Sunday here, have had some rain, expected high temperature  13 C. 

Stay safe, take care everyone.

 

 

[USN59-79]

I found a bottle of the cooking gin and was able to do a taste test with Bombay Sapphire.  Actually, the taste is very similar.  The major difference is that the less expensive gin has a less intense taste; kind of like if you added a little water but kept the same amount of alcohol, you would have the cooking gin.  Anyway, the dinner was great.  One other thing we did this afternoon was to change our phone carriers from ATT to T-Mobile.  Our DS sent us the new sim cards and there was a little bit of hassle as our two iPhones needed to be unlocked from ATT.  Took about ten minutes each and ATT quickly unlocked them for us online.

[Sharon in AZ]

Good evening!  I had no problems with CC gremlins this morning but later this afternoon and evening have not been able to post, still getting a whole page of posts in my reply and doing the same things @erewhonsaid.  So I'm trying the PC, hopefully it works.

 

@rafinmd, Roy, your reunion sounds like it was very nice.  I loved your high school picture.  Have a safe journey tomorrow and take your time getting home.  Hopefully the rest stops are frequent. 

[erewhon]

7 minutes ago, Sharon in AZ said:

Good evening!  I had no problems with CC gremlins this morning but later this afternoon and evening have not been able to post, still getting a whole page of posts in my reply and doing the same things @erewhonsaid.  So I'm trying the PC, hopefully it works.

 

@rafinmd, Roy, your reunion sounds like it was very nice.  I loved your high school picture.  Have a safe journey tomorrow and take your time getting home.  Hopefully the rest stops are frequent. 

 

Sharon, 

Yesterday, getting the whole page of previous posts in the reply box was quite peculiar.

Hope the CC site soon  gets back to "normal".

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

Thanks for the info.

[grapau27]

8 hours ago, rafinmd said:

On the way to the reunion I stopped at my primary elementary school.  It's near my hotel and opened the year I was in 3rd grade, so it's 70 years young now and looks great:

 

The reunion was at a place called Bella Domani, a nice banquet hall:

 

At the back of the room there was a big display with lots of memorabilia and photos.

 

There was a nametag for each of us including our senior yearbook photos:

 

On one side there was a far too large display of members who are no longer with us:

Earl has been organizing reunions every 5 years for at least 40 years and welcomed us and opened the buffet:

 

 

There was a nice buffet.  I didn't take everything but got a nice selection:

 

 

In the evening I could see the sun going down and went outside for a glimpse:

 

 

Just as it was starting to get dark I took a final little run for a treat.  Byrne Dairy is quite a venerable local dairy in the area that now runs a slew of convenience stores.  70 years later I still have a pretty good feel for their jingle:

 

 

Now that Inspiration 4 is on the ground I'll be getting to bed early.

 

Roy

I'm really pleased you have had a great reunion with your old school friends Roy.

Thanks for sharing your memories and photos.

It was sad to see the memory board of so many who had passed away.

Graham.

[puppycanducruise]

@rafinmdSounds like you had a good reunion, thanks for sharing.  Safe home.

[StLouisCruisers]

Thanks for your report @rafinmdRoy on your 60th class reunion.  It's nice to see faces from the past, even though some of us are unrecognizable from those days!  Did it feel strange to be in a room full of people with very few of them wearing masks?  I wonder if we'll ever get used to that?  Have a safe and uneventful drive home today.

[rafinmd]

35 minutes ago, StLouisCruisers said:

Thanks for your report @rafinmdRoy on your 60th class reunion.  It's nice to see faces from the past, even though some of us are unrecognizable from those days!  Did it feel strange to be in a room full of people with very few of them wearing masks?  I wonder if we'll ever get used to that?  Have a safe and uneventful drive home today.

A little bit but overall New York is doing pretty well with Covid.

 

Roy

[VMax1700]

16 hours ago, St Pete Cruiser said:

The Oceanbreeze was built as the Southern Cross in 1955 by Harland and Wolf in Belfast.

I remember the Southern Cross.  I lived in Belfast from 1950 - 1968 at your mention of the name rang a bell in the back of my head.  I kinda remember my dad taking me on a trolley bus into the city centre to watch a ship and the name is familiar and the date would seem right.  Now to spend another Sunday afternoon reminiscing about childhood!