Ft. Lauderdale to San Diego

What a relief to get home during the night and wake up in our own bed this morning! We succeeded in enjoying a lot of things we did, but increasingly present in our default thinking was all the ways the COVID-19 crisis might intersect us. We tried not to talk about it too much, but we knew what each other was thinking. We are now self-quarantining for at least a week. At the end of that period it will be two weeks since we left Mexico. Our safety margin is actually longer since none of the ports where we went ashore since February 28 have not yet had a case of COVID-19 according to an online tracking map. The ship also passed stricter than usual health inspections when we entered Mexico and again when we docked in San Diego. - - - MARCH 23 UPDATE BEGINS - - - Revised Post-Trip Self-Quarantine End Date We are now well into our second week of self-quarantining.  With the relief of being home quickly followed the decision to calculate our two-week self-quarantine pe...

The forecast rain returned during the night with showers throughout the morning. Coffee, newspapers and being online plus repacking our bags and having a late breakfast made for an exhausting morning.  We received a text from his mother that our grandson Ian had arrived home in Doylestown, PA after an uneventful red-eye flight.  He told his mother that the plane was fuller than the flight he had taken here on Monday, but still had a number of empty seats, including the one next to him. Solamar Hotel granted our request for a late checkout. This enabled us to move smoothly from our room to check-in at the airport without the need to park our bags somewhere. As an aside, soon after we checked into the Solamar, I got a text message asking if everything was satisfactory (which it was). Subsequently, when I had a request or query, texting the front desk elicited a prompt, friendly, helpful response. It was the first time that I had encountered this ...

We awoke to rain and a forecast for its continuance throughout the morning.  We therefore did not accelerate fast into the day, eventually having breakfast so late it bordered on being brunch, but who does brunch on a Thursday, even in California. Rain jackets on, we left the comfort of our hotel for Petco Park where the San Diego Padres play baseball. Although the stadium itself was closed up tight, the outer gates were open, so we were able to wander around the grounds for a while and even take cover under a tent when the rain picked up. We continued on, crossing a pedestrian bridge we had ridden over on Segways a number of years ago. We got to the promenade along the waterfront and had it nearly to ourselves.  This made for good COVID-19 "social distancing" although the guy in the upper right-hand quadrant of the picture - yes, that speck in the distance - seemed a bit close for comfort. Soon after I took the picture above, with some alacrity the rain c...

We awoke to find ROTTERDAM already berthed. We had a leisurely breakfast in our stateroom while (with some apprehension) awaiting the announcement that passengers could begin disembarkation. Apprehension built as the clock went well past the initial disembarkation time with no announcement of any kind. It subsided a bit when the PA system began announcing the names of several non-USA citizens who had not yet reported to ICE for passport inspection. Ten minutes later most of the names were paged a second time.  The clock continued to advance with no further announcements, causing apprehension to uptick again. At 0845, I went out on our verandah to look at the gangway and was relieved to see passengers disembarking.  The first official announcement that passengers could go ashore came at 0900. This was 90 minutes after disembarkation was supposed to begin. Since Pam & I were staying in San Diego for a couple of days and had not fixed commitment until...

We awoke to overcast skies and 64°. In the distance we could see a mountainous coast.  Looking at the chart, we were a bit south of Punta Eugenia (red arrow). My Marine Traffic app showed a number of purple icons astern of us (orange circle). These were yachts. Several that I checked had a destination of of Faro de Cabo Falso which is a lighthouse at Cabo San Lucas. I speculated that we had recently passed an open ocean racing fleet. An online search suggested it might be the Westmex International Small Boat Regatta. As I was leaving our stateroom to go up to the top deck for a walk, Komang, one of our two stewards, suggested that I take my camera and go to the pool area on deck 8. It was an impressive display of towel art created by all the room stewards on the ship. At 1030, we were passing  Isla Cedros on the western side of Bahia Sebastian Viczaino .  By 1100, ...

At 0900, Cabo San Lucas at the southern tip of the Baja California pennisula was off our starboard beam. The temperature was in the high 60's. The sky was cloudy and it was sprinkling.  Throughout the day there were no waves, only a long, low swell that kept ROTTERDAM gently pitching. It was not bothersome. In the afternoon we went to another enjoyable presentation by Captain Albert Schoonerbeek; this one on the evolution of cruising, subtitled Going in a Circle at Great Expense .  We ate dinner in the Pinnacle Grill, had our picture taken (long story for another time), caught a musical segment in one of the lounges and went to a performance by Savannah Jack . It was a fun evening aboard.