July 21, 2024

New rudder stocks being installed. Oh happy day!

Finally the tides have turned in our favor! The two rudder stocks have been signed off and approved by the inspection agency and are being installed on the ship. The hope is to be flooding the dry dock tomorrow and allowing us to finally float again. They will then move the ship out of dock area and get the all the in water testing done and signed off, so we can embark and set sail out of Belfast on our maiden voyage. The anticipated sail date and time is 20:00 ( or 8pm ) on Tuesday, July 30th. Below is the revised itinerary showing the departure of July 30th and the revisions needed to balance of segment & two to incorporate the delays. Canada and the East Coast of USA have been removed for now, for several reasons. I actually like revisions, in that it gives us back some of European ports I was looking forward to sooner than later and adds Portugal, the Azores and Bermuda sooner than later. By segment 3 we are caught back up to originally planned itinerary. So any guest want to join me in August , September or October? Just let me know!

Revised Itinerary

HA LONG BAY, VIETNAM

By Pat Patrick • August 31, 2026
Ha Long Bay in Vietnam is one of those bucket list places I have had in my sights for years. It's the iconic picture in my mind's eye, whenever I think of Vietnam . We had made plans to go with 8 others on a brand new, swanky Red Dragon Junk boat for a harbor cruise and overnight stay, but sadly the weather did not cooperate the whole 4 days we were in port. No ships were permitted to sail, per the local government. Many of us were bummed! This is typhoon session and there was a lot of rain and high winds our first couple of days - we were hoping it would blow out the last day and we could at least do a day trip but no luck! 

HAI VAN PASS to HUE, VIETNAM

By Pat Patrick • August 30, 2026
To get to the final stop on our Vietnam FUN Tour in Hue, we had our driver take us on the scenic route called the Hai Van Pass. This 3 hour drive took us back through Da Nang and then into mountains and along coast for what is generally a very scenic route. Unfortunately for us, it was mainly covered in clouds and fog.

HOI ' AN, VIETNAM

By Pat Patrick • August 25, 2026
Next stop on the VIETNAM FUN TOUR is HOI'AN - The City of Laterns! I had arranged a private car to take us between all the major locations and towns for the 5 days we were touring the interior. He delivered us to Hoi'An in just about an hour from Ba Na Hills . Here we stayed 2 nights and had lots of relaxing time built in. Again the heat was oppressive! The driver recommended below tailor to me as I mentioned I might want to have a dress custom made as that is another thing the town is known for with 24 hour turn around.