R. Doug Wicker — Author | Stories of Mystery and Adventure

April 9, 2012 · 6:07 am

Views of the MS Ryndam

This is our first trip aboard Holland America’s MS Ryndam, and I must say that it’s a very nice ship for one that was built back in the late 1990s. Of course it was refurbished in 2010, but still . . . .

At any rate, I decided to spend one evening strolling around taking interior shots, and the next day I took the picture of the pool you see below. The dockside exteriors were taken in Bermuda.

There’s much to do aboard a ship such as this, even on sea days. I enjoy playing bridge, for instance. Ursula spends her time reading, and as soon as we boarded we headed up to the ship’s library. Ursula’s picks this trip were biographies: That famous corgi lover Queen Elizabeth; that infamous equestrian lover Catherine the Great; and volume one of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.’s life story.

In between all that, we’ve also enjoyed the following movies in the Ryndam’s theater: Apollo 18 (nothing to write home about), The Muppets (good family movie); The Artist (I can see why it stole the show at this year’s Oscars; absolutely incredible film making).

Wednesday I’ll show you King’s Wharf, Bermuda, and Friday you’ll see the capital city of Hamilton. Meanwhile, enjoy this tour of the MS Ryndam:

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Filed under Photography, travel

Tagged as cuise ships, Holland America, photography, Ryndam, travel

April 6, 2012 · 5:08 am

Sunset at Sea

We set sail out of Tampa, headed south, rounded the Keys, and then headed east. Before dinner I floated around the ship and took a few shots of the giant fountain-statue in the atrium. It’s a rather impressive piece of art rising over two stories in height inside the ship’s central atrium. At the front was a nice ship’s figurehead of the usual topless mermaid variety.

After that we headed on over to the main dining room. You can see that pictured below as well. The dining room here is a two-story affair with lots of natural light.

Guessed the ship yet? It’s Holland America’s MS Ryndam—just one of many ships in Holland America’s ’Dam fleet. They’re called the ’Dam fleet because, well—Rotterdam, Prinsendam, Ryndam, Statendam, Zuiderdam, Niew Amsterdam, etc., etc., etc. That’s a lot of ’Dam ships.

As we were finishing up a delightful dinner with entertaining conversation from our two lovely dinner companions Mary and Ray Switzer (whom we’d met at dinner just the night before), Ursula noticed a spectacular sunset was in the making. Fortunately, I had my newly acquired Canon G1 X with me, and we were able to rush outside in time to capture the red setting sun and dramatic clouds against the azure background above the reflective waters of the Atlantic.

We’ll continue our adventures in next week’s blogs. Until then, enjoy the show below:

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Filed under Photography, travel

Tagged as cruise ship, Ryndam, travel

April 4, 2012 · 5:07 am

Tampa in the Rearview Mirror

On Monday’s blog we took a rather cursory look at Tampa. Today we’ll see a bit more of the skyline as viewed from one of the cruise ships.

You’ll have to tune in on Friday to discover the ship from which these photographs were taken. For now, let’s just say that it’s a Holland America ship, and the view of Tampa and the Tampa Port Authority were exquisite. The neat thing about the Tampa Port Authority is that, if you take a close look, you’ll see inside the giant green glass cube an immense glass globe. And inside that globe appear to be individual office spaces.

That’s the Seddon Lighthouse you’ll see below, and I managed to capture both it and the Tampa skyline in the background behind it.

On the other side of the ship was a rather imposing grain elevator that verily cried out for the Ansel Adams touch, so I took a second shot of it in portrait orientation and did a little Picasa magic. The sky was darkened by filtering with a virtual dark red filter.

But what’s a cruise without the ever-popular deck shot during the initial sail away from port? The beautiful babe in the striped shirt is, of course, Ursula.

That night we witnessed an absolutely stunning ocean sunset. But you’ll have to come back on Friday to see that, as well as some photographs of the interior of our mystery ship.