Chillin' in the Summertime

“ You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough .” -  Mae West Regent Seven Seas Navigator, docked in Bermuda Most of us are creatures of routine. When a change in our living circumstances occurs, we quickly establish routines to (a) sooth ourselves, and (b) inject some efficiency into our situation. Being on a cruise for three months is no different—a certain level of routine rapidly emerges. So, when asked how we can stand to be on a cruise that long, the answer is easy. The cruise ship becomes home, and we treat it as such. Days on a cruise ship come in two types: port days and sea days. In other words, days that the ship is docked (or anchored) and we can get off and explore, and days when the ship is chugging across the sea and thus no one can leave the ship. On the 89 days of this cruise, we had 66 port days and 23 sea days. Almost 1/3 of the latter were at the end of the journey, as we crossed the Atlantic Ocean back to New York. Since

“ As we negotiated the hairpin turns that followed the fall of the land, we couldn’t help noticing the flora. It was untamed, astonishing. Only Nature could have produced the mad profusion of blossoms that entangled the rich green landscape. Bright reds, oranges, blues, and purples dumbfounded our eyes. At almost every bend in the road waterfalls splashed downward sometimes ending in still or swirling, dark, mysterious pools .” – Bob Silverman, A Pause in the Azores We have departed continental Europe, and are now slowly making our way across the Atlantic, with stops at a few islands along the way. I had assumed these island stops would be little more than ways to break what would otherwise be a weeklong sail across the ocean. I completely underestimated them, even though I’d been to all of them at least once before. I’ve already written about Madeira, where my previous visit had been limited to a visit to a garden and a trip down a hill in a wicker basket. A