cruise ship | R. Doug Wicker — Author

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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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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.