February 20, 2025

PENINSULA VALDES, ARGENTINA

On 2/9/25, SUPERBOWL SUNDAY ,  I spent the day exploring the Peninsula Valdes, a naturally protected area about an hour north of Puerto Madryn,  with the Tremblay brothers, Paul & Ron  - 2 of my favorite neighbors. They had rented a car for the day and invited me to join them exploring the area. We left early in the hope of catching lots of wildlife. We first saw pink flamingoes, then wild sheep and seals, penguins, a hairy armadillo, a cormorant crossing the road and finally wild ponies.

The Peninsula is a UNESCO Natural Preserve and host the town of Puerto Piramides, where we had a nice lunch sea side. The rest of the park is vast and wide open, where we barely saw other cars on the stone roads. One hillside boasted a small church and some of the scenic overlooks had colorful fauna.

By Patricia Patrick October 13, 2025
Ternate, Indonesia, which is both the name of the city and island, and is part of the Maluku Islands in eastern Indonesia. It is a port that sees maybe 3 Cruise ships a year. However, they really made an effort to show us the best of what they can offer. It's mainly a Muslim country, and we knew we had to dress discretely, but we knew little else. We didn't have our typical port talk prior, due to a technical issue with the AV equipment. Ben a fellow resident, organized an island tour, with about 8 stops, for 90 of us residents.
By Patricia Patrick October 10, 2025
Cebu greeted our Ship with a big warm welcome, despite having just been rocked by a major Earthquake, days before our arrival. The Minister of Tourism arrived with a motorcade and she proceeded to chat with the residents and thank us, for all our support.
By Patricia Patrick October 2, 2025
Today we were Cave explorers! We went to the one of UNESCO newly classified 7 NEW WONDERS OF NATURE - The Puerto Princesa Underground River.