Tag Archives: cruise

November 9, 2012 · 12:00 am

Cruising the West Coast — USS Midway

I love it when a great warship is preserved rather than scrapped, used for target practice, or sunk as an artificial reef. Such ships (and more importantly, their crew) should be honored, not discarded.

We arrived into San Diego on the Sapphire Princess the day after our Catalina Island excursion, and it was with great delight that I found we were within easy walking distance of the great USS Midway, which served in the United States Navy from just eight days after the formal surrender of Japan aboard the USS Missouri until its decommissioning nearly 47 years later, in April of 1992. During that time, USS Midway operated in the Korean and Vietnam theaters of conflict and participated in the First Gulf War. Indeed, it was the USS Midway that served as the backdrop for the now famous photos of Huey helicopters being shoved over the side of the ship to allow South Vietnamese Major Buang-Ly, his wife, and their five children to land in his two-seat Cessna O-1 Bird Dog during the final rout of South Vietnam.

USS Midway’s final major deployment was in support of Operation Fiery Vigil. Operation Fiery Vigil was 20,000 Americans evacuated from Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Station in the aftermath of the devastating eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.

Now, about the ship itself. First of all, this thing is huge. And what’s really amazing is the realization — as you’re standing on the massive four-acre flight deck or wandering through the cavernous hangar deck below — that is ship is far smaller than the modern supercarrier, and was deemed too small a ship for F-14 Tomcat operations.

But, then, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here they are:

: SBD Dauntless from WWII

: F4F Wildcat from WWII

: F4U Corsair from WWII

: The “Island” — Flight Operations Center on the Right

: Radar Mast

: The Bridge Portion of the “Island”

: The Wheel that Guided this Behemoth

: F(F Panther — Bridges of Toko Ri

: Helicopters — Vintage and Current

: The Mast Above the “Island”

: One of the Engine Rooms

: Looking Down on the Flight Deck from the “Island”

: Piasecki Twin-Rotor Helicopter

: USS Midway Panorama

: Sikorsky H-34 — one of the last piston-engine military helicopters

: E-2 Hawkeye in the Foreground

: F-8 Crusader with its Variable-Incidence Wing

: Four Acres of Flight Deck

: Looking up from the pier

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Filed under Photography, travel

Tagged as cruise, photography, San Diego, Sapphire Princess, travel, travel photography, USS Midway, West Coast

September 10, 2012 · 5:45 am

From Seward to Anchorage

Our cruise voyage finished where last year’s cruise began, in the port town of Seward. We bid farewell to our home

One of the most scenic highways in the world is the stretch between Seward and Anchorage — the magnificent Seward Highway. Along the way you can stop to see Portage Glacier (which we skipped this voyage, having seen it last year) and spectacular views of pristine meadows surrounded by white-topped mountains.

Also along the way is also the fun Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. Their mission? To protect Alaska’s wildlife, which come out in herds on Friday nights and roam the bars, saloons, and dance halls into the wee hours of Monday morning. Oh, wait. Wrong wildlife. What you will see there are American Bison, deer, black bears, bobcats, bald eagles, and other assorted (and sober) animals. Of course, you don’t have to go to a conservation center to see Alaskan wildlife. You could just wait until you hit the streets of Anchorage on the weekends.

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Filed under Photography, travel

Tagged as Anchorage, cruise, Seward, travel

September 7, 2012 · 5:40 am

Revisiting Le Cirque—the MS Statendam Version

This blog article may seem familiar to you. That’s because we did something similar aboard Holland America’s MS Ryndam this past April, on our transatlantic voyage to the beaches of Normandie and beyond.

Holland America’s ships have an upscale restaurant that is well worth trying at least once every voyage. These dining rooms are called the Pinnacle Grill, and they are indeed worth the extra amount you’ll spend in them. But even more special is Le Cirque night in the Pinnacle Grill, and you’d better make reservations well in advance if you want to partake of this very special culinary treat.

At least once each voyage (and more on longer voyages), the Pinnacle Grill staff creates a special dinner using signature items from Sirio Maccioni‘s legendary Le Cirque restaurant founded in New York in 1974. Such a dinner is made even more delightful when it comes the evening following a full day of cruising Glacier Bay.

The captions below speak for the individual courses we had that enchanting, romantic evening. The waiter pictured with Ursula is an old friend—a friendly young chap who had served us many times before, during our numerous trips to the Pinnacle Grill aboard Holland America’s MS Prinsendam during a 54-day voyage back in March through May of 2010. Yes, he recognized us just as quickly as we did he.