Dublin Was a No-Go Today...

Monday, September 30. Foggy, light rain, choppy 11 C.

The captain announced early this morning that the ship was unable to anchor because the pilot could not board the ship  because of bad weather. My gosh, what a bunch of Whoosies we must have ashore. Unless they are not telling us the truth? 

It doesn’t really matter as Fellette and I were thinking of not going ashore. We have been here before and were unimpressed then. We are not a fan of big cities, we call them ABC’s. [Another Big City.] This is not Sour Grapes, but the truth. We had a shore excursion booked: to a Castle and a Walk in Some Gardens.

It is not a day for being outside.

Just a plain old Fall rainy and blustery day.

Craig is doing the Blog for me today as this ship seems to have difficulty working with the Blog Website, so I write him and email this text, he then goes into blogger and edits it etc., and posts it at his convenience. He has helped me out for 25 years or so, but usually in some isolated parts of the word, not when we are basically close to the centre of the Western World! Oh, Woe is me!!!

Well folks, I am sorry that our little Vacation at Sea turned into bit of a bust for you. However, in spite of a few misadventures due to weather, we have had a very restful couple of weeks bobbing around and going down some Memory Lanes. No commitments, no dinners to cook, beds to make nor groceries to go shopping for. Just bumming around into forced relaxation. 

A Lazy Day in The Irish Sea.

Belfast, Ireland...

Sunday, September 29. Rain,  10 C.

It's a long way from Kirkwall to Dublin, so much so that it takes a full 24 hours of running at near top speed to get here. We appreciated the time to have a lazy sleep in this morning. We were at the top end of the Irish Sea when we awoke this morning. Another five hours before we get to Belfast.

Believe it or not we have only five more sleeps and then the great Silver Bird flies us home. We arrive back in Southampton in the morning, get on the coach and shuttle up to Heathrow where we leave  at 2:10 in the afternoon and arrive in Vancouver at 3:55, in the afternoon. All Lord willing of course.

About this cruise: We have only five more sleeps before we return home this coming Friday. Wow, about the shortest cruse for us in 30 years. And, to a non-exotic place like Britain! It is exactly what Fellette and I wanted. The last World Cruise we were on in the spring of 2023 was a bit of a disaster for us in many ways. I said that I had  'Hung up my cruising shoes' after that one. There were many reasons for that that I will not mention. This was a 'Test Cruise' to see how we liked cruising or if our 'Cruise Days' were truly over. At this point I can say that we still enjoy the life aboard. But, on a smaller and more sedate pace, like this one.

An Informative Afternoon.

On a Tour called The Titanic Trail, after lunch.

This is the Dry Dock that the Titanic was sailed into after it was launched. There, the hull could be painted and the propellors installed.

In the bottom of the dry dock. After floating the ship in, the water would be pumped out and the keel would rest on the massive cast iron  and wooden blocks running the length of the keel. The ship was propped up sideways by timbers from the sides of the concrete walls to the ship. The workers can then get to work on installing propellors and I suppose, the ridder mechanism.

A profile of the prow of the ship. It does not look to the right scale as the ship was massive in every way.

No expense was spared here. The whole dockyard area, acres and acres of it has been converted to a Shrine to 'Everything Titanic'. Almost to a Disneyland proportion, but this is history and not make believe. The building and displays that houses 'Titanic Belfast' is a very comprehensive and hands on on experience. It is amazing at how many adults can linger at the displays and stories inside this massive building. It was designed  and built to specifically be a World Class attraction to draw people to Belfast to stimulate the Belfast economy. I would say it has succeeded.

If you try hard, you can see the word TITANIC made from a plate of steel like the ship was made from.

Self explanatory.

All things Trans Atlantic.

Just a very pleasant booster for Belfast on display.

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I apologize in advance for the number of typographical errors in the blogs. The internet coverage up in northern UK is sparse as we were shown yesterday by our Romanian friend in the office for passengers  assistance for all things to do with internet at sea! I cannot proof-read my work because I risk the chance of loosing it completely, as I have done a few times this trip

Kirkwall, in The Orkney's

 Saturday, September 28. Cold as Hell, Windy. 9 C.

Today we went on an early 'Orkney's Archaeological Wonders' tour. We have run out of Cold Weather Clothing, we were wearing it all. The sun was out and the sky was Azure Blue. But, it was bitterly Cold!

Our guide was a Welshman but also an Archaeologist and has worked on the Digs up the the area we went to. So we had the best possible guide we could get. The ship got in at 7:00 am and sailed at 1:00 pm as we have a long run down south to Belfast, Ireland tomorrow.

Apologies for a Lumpy Blog, the internet is worse here than in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and we are a few miles off the coast of Great Britain, make one wonder???

A Cold and Windy Day, But Interesting!

There, now we know where we are!

This is known as 'A Standing Stone' for obvious reasons. They are in several ares around here. Much is unknown about them, who, and why they were placed here. 

At least I know the name of the Stones.

Somebody lived up here until  about 1995.

The crops are in up here as  they are further down south.

Spooky and mysterious looking things.

This dwelling was covered in sand for a few thousand years and on a very stormy night in 1850 was uncovered. The Lord used it as a play area for the children until it was excavated properly much, much later. Fascinating to walk where the ancients lived! 

Doug cannot resist posing with big guns! Windy and cold or not.

Now here it was actually not windy but warm! A walled Garden.

Speaks for itself. We had a hot coffee in the cafe and Gift Shop.

My lunch on Board. That and a milk shake.

Lerwick, in The Shetlands...

Friday, September 27. Chilling cold and windy. 7 C.

The internet is acting up again so this is the second time I have written this blog today.

We went on a Walking Tour of this town of 7000 hardy souls. Our guide was a youngish native of this area. She had a very strong accent that I could hardly understand but it became easier to understand as time went by. She explained that is a mish-mash of English, Celtish, Norse and Dutch.

There is nothing terribly exciting to report today about our visit. We have also been here before several years ago, but nice to see it again.

Fellette and I are feeling a wee bit guilty about or apparent laziness  on this trip. We are both seemingly endlessly tired, but I feel that it is because we are incapable of doing what we do at home. Work! It is impossible for us to work here, so we don't. And guess what, we are relaxing and that is something we have never mastered to do at home. So this is good news.

A Very Relaxing Day...

Coming into Lerwick early today.

Our guide, dressed for the cold this morning, orienting us.

I don't think the picture captures the wind and the cold.

We were a small group of maybe 20 souls.

 Not what you would call a 'A home on the water', likely a couple of hundred years old, made of stone.

Doug in his Big Gun photo Opportunity. At Fort Charlotte this morning.

Self explanatory.

Into the camp. To this day it is a functioning Territorial [Reserve] Army base.

Home sweet home.

This seems to be 'A Thing' here, a garage with an upturned boat built in as an integral part, forming the roof.

Our guide took us inside the City Hall to warm us up.

We warmed up back on the ship, Fellette had tea, I had an Irish Coffee. [With half a shot of the Irish].

Invergordon, Still in Scotland...

Thursday, September 26. 10 C.

Holy cow, when we awoke this morning I saw that we were just off the village of Buckie, near Inverness, where I stayed with Moe's husband Ralph's relatives for a week or 10 days in 1960. Good memories!  

We have found that the timings of dinner on this ship are 'late' by our standard at home. We usually have had dinner and cleaned up by 7:00 at night. Aboard the ship here, 7:00 pm is when the restaurants begin to serve dinner. It takes some getting used to.

We went on a coach tour to Dunrobin Castle today. The sky was sunny, actually a lovely day but the temperature felt like early spring. Super It was a Super Day! I never thought that we would be back in Scotland again! We had a wonderful drive through the Highlands today. The traffic was light, the countryside was brilliant, all the crops are harvested and the rolling hills look like they have been vacuumed. Clean and neat as a whistle! Same for the roads and the few settlements we went through.

We have driven through the highlands, a couple of times but then we were unable to enjoy it as much because driving on the wrong side of the road took the joy out of sightseeing out and driving required full attention.

Today's trip was significant because Fellette is a Sutherland, and Scottish as heck. Dunrobin Castle is where the Duke of Sutherland was and a Duke still lives there. The Duke, back in 1750 cleared the area of Crofters, [peasant-like locals trying to survive in the sparsely occupied Highlands] in the County of Sutherland to allow sheep to occupy his land to harvest the wool, booting the crofters out! This time was known as The Sutherland Clearances and made the name Sutherland a nasty name. To this day that is the case with the name, however the current Duke of Sutherland is actually a very pleasant fellow and his ancestors have been for some very long time now.

We spent some time inside the castle but not much as I/we have been here before, and the crowd was slow moving inside, I am not sure if it was with Fellette or Craig in the 1980's or 1990's. The gardens are beautiful even at this time of the year. So, we spent most of the time out there. We also watched a bit of a Hawk and Falcon display. Chilly but interesting out there.

A Good Day.

Good Morning Invergordon!

Yes, a stuffed deer in the entrance way.

It is a very impressive Castle, it has something like 180 rooms, in total.

Upstairs was equally impressive.

The Duke in 1962.

Quite the dinner table, in of course the Dining Room.

That is a Solid Silver Fox table ornament. The Original Duke was one of the the wealthiest men in the world a couple of hundred years ago and the current Duke is still amongst the wealthiest

A view of half of the gardens from the Castle. Cromarty Firth in the distance.

There you have it, from the Gardens.

The Croquet lawn! 

Fellette and the Hollyhocks.

Harris Hawk.

Going through a small but well off village.

The Cromarty Firth, a bit barren.

Edinburgh, or Auld Reeky...

Wednesday, September 25. Blue sky. 10 C, chilly.

We are at anchor or hovering in one spot more likely. It is a 15 minute tender ride, then a 15 minute coach ride near Princes Street below the Castle that dominates the city.

In my wildest dreams I thought that I may get myself a Harris Tweed sports coat this trip. However, the prices of such are ridiculous, so I tried on a vest and ended up getting it and the vest! In for a Penny, in for a Pound goes the saying!

We found out that it appears we have walked too many flights of stairs on the ship as our legs did not appreciate the walking this morning, although as the time went on it got better. Come time to go back to the ship we had a lovely big Mercedes Benz shuttle bus all to ourselves, and, at the Tender Dock going back to the ship, Regent had charted a local tour boat  so we got back on board in Grand Style!

On the tour boat on the way back to the ship I chatted with a crew member, a New Zealander about 30 years old. I asked her how all the serving staff was so happy, polite and intent on doing there job in the most professional way. She told me that Regent goes through an Agency for that aspect of the crew. Also, Regent has onboard their ships an officer who is responsible to oversee that those people maintain a set of standards set by Regent. Believe me the difference is noticeable, you can just feel it everywhere.

We both feel a bit guilty about not really mixing and mingling on board this trip. We both do miss the company of Jim and Gail on board a ship, after all we have spent more than 500 days at sea with them since we met, on a ship years ago. 

I think that we both are quite weary actually, not from jet-lag or walking the stairs on the ship but just from the fact that we are older than we think we are. We don't really know how to relax and guess what? Now we are forced to relax and actually rather quite enjoy it because here we have no other option. And it feels very, very good to do so!

An Excellent Day.

Ahhh, that first coffee in the morning feels great doesn't it?

Wow, piped into the dock this morning, nice.

Fellette picking out a tee-shirt for great grandson Miles this morning, we thought that buying gifts for kids and grandkids was over!

Downtown Edinburgh,  just a big city. We have walked it several times before in younger years, my first time was 64 years ago. 

The very right side of the castle.

Look at the size of that 'Tender' taking us back to the ship!

The perfect day for such a open deck ride.

Thar she blows, plus my finger!

We discovered a quiet on-deck lunch or drink area at the very back of deck 11. Decadent.

We haven't done this for years and years: Laid out our booty for the day and take a photo. Years ago it had stuff for our grandkids. How crass of us!