Posts In The “Destinations” Category
Despite all our travels, Jennifer had never been to Mexico and James had only briefly visited once, years ago for a conference in Cancun. Jennifer finally reached America’s neighbor to the south early this year on a fabulous weekend trip to Cabo San Lucas at the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula. James started…
Gig Harbor is a wonderfully sheltered and tranquil harbor on the opposite side of the Puget Sound from Tacoma. We’ve spent many nights anchored there on Dirona, enjoying the lights reflecting into the still waters from the homes and businesses that ring the shore. And we always made a point to take the tender ashore…
We enjoyed our first weekend at Point Ruston so much that we returned for another earlier this year. We love the rooms at the Point Ruston Waterfront hotel, with sweeping views to Commencement Bay, where we can get a little work done by the window and see what’s happening outside, both on land and the…
As part of our trip to the South Pole, we returned to Cape Town for the first time since 2015. Back then, we’d arrived in South Africa from Reunion after crossing the Indian Ocean in Dirona, and spent two months in country before sailing on to Barbados via St. Helena. As our plane banked over…
For the first half of the 20th century, the only people who had stood at the South Pole were the 1911/1912 expedition teams of Norwegian Roald Amundsen and Briton Robert F. Scott. It wasn’t until 1956 that humans again set foot at the pole, this time to establish the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station research center…
We first visited Antarctica aboard the National Geographic Endurance in late 2022 and loved the raw beauty of the snow-covered wilderness, with fantastically-shaped icebergs and rugged mountains soaring upwards from land and sea. The wildlife was exceptional as well, but it was the scenery that really drew us in. We knew we’d be back, but…
World-famous Kruger National Park is one of the largest game reserves on the African continent, encompassing nearly 4.9 million acres (2 million ha). The park also is home to among the widest diversity of large mammals in the world, including the lion, leopard, cheetah, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, elephant, buffalo, giraffe, zebra, antelope, and wildebeest. We very…
Doha, the capitol of oil-rich Qatar, is a fast-growing and dynamic city with a spectacular, constantly-evolving skyline. The Qatari government, in an effort to diversify the economy away from oil and gas sector and encourage tourism and business investments, is investing heavily in world-class infrastructure and modernization. The country has burst onto the world stage…
Launched in 2020, the Aqua Nera is the newest by a decade of the roughly half-dozen commercial river boats that cruise the Peruvian Amazon River. The ship is operated by Aqua Expeditions, who have branched out from their beginnings on the Amazon River to operate small-boat cruises in the Galapagos, Indonesia, and the Mekong River….
While on a recent safari at Lion Sands Ivory Lodge in Sabi Sands Game Reserve, South Africa, we watched an African rock python swallow an impala. The opportunity to watch a python swallow its prey is rare and ours was even more so, in that the typical prey for the python is much smaller animals…
In addition to more adventuring in the Pacific Northwest, this year we continued the “filling in the gaps” tour and visited several places that we either didn’t get to, or couldn’t reach, on our around-the world trip on Dirona. And we’re happy to report that Spitfire the wonder cat reached his 20th birthday this year,…
November brought winter weather to Seattle, with heavy rainfall and temperatures that brushed around freezing. We escaped the cold weather, but not the rain, on an Amazon River cruise later in the month. Temperatures there were in the high 90s F (32 C), with the sporadic downpours typical of the tropics. Preparing for the trip…
The Amazon River is the largest river in the world by discharge volume and second longest in the world (after the Nile). Originating in Peru, the Amazon flows 4,000 miles (6,400 km) eastward drain into to the Atlantic Ocean in Brazil. The river has two seasons, high water and low water, with a 35-45-ft (10.6-13.8m)…
The #1 New York Times-bestselling The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown chronicles the true story of Joe Rantz and his working-class teammates on the University of Washington rowing crew who, against all odds, competed for the gold medal at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. The book was recently made into a movie…
October is the height of fresh hop beer season in the Pacific Northwest. We didn’t plan a fresh hop tasting tour to Ballard this year, but ended up doing a small one with a tasting flight of fresh hop beers at Fremont Brewing in Ballard after a late Friday afternoon appointment nearby. While Ballard remains…
The Pacific Northwest often has wonderfully clear fall weather, with temperatures warm enough to eat outside, and this year was no exception. Except for a couple of days of heavy rain, we experienced September temperatures that often were above 70°F (21°C) and enjoyed many meals outside under a cloudless blue sky. And the wonderful weather…
In late September, we made a long-planned weekend trip by floatplane to Victoria to celebrate the 70th birthday of James’ uncle Neil. We spent two nights in our home town, exploring the city, visiting old haunts and new places, and catching up with the Hamilton clan. Taking a Kenmore Air floatplane from South Lake Union…
The Reykjanes Peninsula, also known as the Southern Peninsula, juts into the North Atlantic Ocean from Iceland’s southwest corner. Lying directly over the Mid Atlantic Ridge, one of the larges tectonic plate boundaries in the world, the area is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity. Recently, much of the peninsula is under volcano watch after…