St. Lucia - St Luscious

Saturday marked our arrival at our first sea port (finally) after having missed St Maarten because of the storm. St. Lucia could have been called ‘St. Lushous’ since it is so intensely green and vibrant. The mountainous, rugged terrain is breathtakingly beautiful.

We summonsed a van for the eight of us and went north to Pigeon Island ($7 ea. each way + tip) There was a $5 admission to the park which is run by the National Trust Company of St. Lucia. Pete and Donna (and their re-enactors) would have loved this spot. Scattered through out the island (actually now an isthmus because of a new causeway) were very well preserved remnants of a British military fortification from the early 1800’s. We ascended a steep pathway to a spectacular view from Fort Rodney perched high above the island. This ‘platform’ fortress contained a cistern to catch rainwater used to cool the one dozen 24 pound cannons and a powder magazine where they stored munitions. The view was remarkable. Holly and Barry, and Sharon and Greg continued up the mountain to the 2000’ peak which was used for military radio communications during WWII up until 1947.

Back down to the shoreline and a beautiful sandy beach, everyone enjoyed a swim in the clear, warm ocean water.

At the beach, we met a couple from England, who actually uprooted themselves and moved to St Lucia a couple of years ago. Trevor and his wife and visiting niece were down to their favorite beach where we met them. I remarked that it ‘took a lot of guts’ to do that but Trevor insisted that it was a matter of ‘knowing what you wanted’. I gave him my card and really hoped he would keep in touch through the internet as I was thoroughly impressed!
Back to the ship where we eat every night in the dining room and the meals are spectacular.

After a fabulous dinner in the Rotterdam dining room, we went to the lounge to watch comedian Don Ware. Featured on many late night TV shows like Leno and Letterman, former writer for the Cosby Show, and regular at Las Vegas (he has his own suite in Vegas) he broke the audience up with his wry humour. Wendy and I easily rated him the best act so far.

Here I am with funnyman Don Ware. I'm on the left

This Is More Like It!

The sea has calmed right down now and the skies are mostly sunny with patchy clouds. It’s hotter today with the sunshine. We must be in the Caribbean Sea. I connected my GPS to my computer to see where we really are . The TV’s in our cabin and throughout the ship, still show we are on our way to St Maarten . We are actually, seventy miles south of Puerto Rico on a south easterly course, 388 miles from Castries, St Lucia traveling at a speed of 20 mph.That should put us in at about 6am. Everyone is in much better spirits and the ‘Trick or Treat’ (motion sickness) bags have been removed from in front of each elevator. This morning the Captain announced Champagne Breakfast for all to make up for the ‘inconvenience’. Last night was ‘formal night’ and I noticed that although it was busy, a lot of people must have been resting up since there were a lot of empty spots. Rough seas; I know from our own boat, cause you to use muscles that you don’t always use a lot. My theory is, that’s because the motion of the ship causes you to be constantly correcting in order to maintain your balance. This continuous ‘exercise’ wears you down over time. This may explain why a lot of people never left their cabins for the first two days. Not to mention they were busy calling Ralph on ‘the great white telephone’ Even the statue on the ship looked 'unwell'.

Tonight, the wait staff are putting on a show in the dining room and a fine dessert designed by head chef Rudy Soderman is going to be featured.

Noel Noel - the Christmas Winds?

Right now I am sitting in a deck chair on the Maasdam just north of Puerto Rico. Tropical Storm Noel was officially up-graded to Hurricane Noel" the other day, so we didn’t know what to expect. Yesterday was quite grueling as we ran right through the tropical storm/ hurricane. 12 to 20 footers whipped up by 50+ knot winds caused the little ship to pitch so much that walking was quite difficult and nearly impossible for the elderly or handicapped. The stabilizers are of course designed to counter 'roll' but have little or no effect on pitching. We are traveling with 6 others (our cruising gang) and at least two of them were too sick to venture out of their cabins for the last two nights. Our next scheduled port of call was St Maarten on Friday but that has been cancelled because we could only make 12 knots heading straight into the waves and we lost too much time. The huge waves caused the whole ship to shudder and from our cabin near the bow we could hear every breaker pound the ship with loud metallic crashing roar. It was like going over the falls in an oil drum! The Captain decided, in the name of passenger safety, to alter course and steam to St Lucia.. Today we'll turn South instead and cut through by Puerto Rico and enter the Caribbean. Now, the sun has come out, 83 degrees and the sea-state has been downgraded to 'rough'. 7 to 12 footers. They don't bother the ship at all, so everyone is coming back to normal. Even I was feeling a little headachy and nauseous yesterday.

CLICK HERE for the CBC report. 
The death toll rose early Friday to 115, making it this year's deadliest storm in the Atlantic region.

There Was Dancing In The Street

Halleluiah, the money’s in the bank! The old homestead, Wendy’s Mom’s home of over 60 years, has officially changed ownership today. This ends over a year of toil, worry and ongoing costs. The only problem is, now my car won’t fit in our garage at Wistful Vista because it is still bulging with treasure that no one had the heart to discard. I guess we’ll deal with that after the cruise.

Getting in Shape for the Cruise. Conditioning myself!

I know I always have to build up gradually or the shock of the cruise ship continuous buffet could be devastating.

We leave Monday night (actually Tuesday at 2 am) for our journey to the Detroit airport and our cruise out of Fort Lauderdale. The Maasdam, Holland America Lines.

ITINERARY

DAY DATE PORT ARRIVE DEPART Tue Oct 30 Fort Lauderdale, FL 5:00pm Wed Oct 31 At Sea Thu Nov 1 At Sea Fri Nov 2 St. Maarten, Neth. Antilles 8:00am 3:00pm Sat Nov 3 St. Lucia 8:00am 5:30pm Sun Nov 4 Barbados 8:00am 6:00pm Mon Nov 5 Martinique 7:00am 2:00pm Tue Nov 6 Tortola, British V.I. 8:00am 4:00pm Wed Nov 7 At Sea Thu Nov 8 Half Moon Cay, Bahamas 8:00am 4:00pm Fri Nov 9 Fort Lauderdale, FL 7:00am

After the cruise, we're renting a car and driving down to Marathon in the Keys. Holly and Barry, Cheryl and John and Wendy and I. Unfortunately Sharon and Greg have to get back to Pittsburgh, so they won't be able to go to Marathon with us. Click here to see our lovely spot. We will return to Fort Lauderdale and the flight home on November 14.

Goodbye Flash – 1984 to 2007 – Died Peacefully in his 24th Year

Click on picture to enlarge
Life is full of ups and downs. Hopefully, we all have more ups than downs but, without all these ups and downs, we as humans would never know the difference between the peaks and the valleys.

It’s sad when we lose a friend that’s been with us for so long. It takes the good times to actually make us feel sad when something bad happens.

Flash gave us lots of 'ups', lots of good times in his long, long life. He was quite the cat! Not a pure-bread or a show cat, but a friendly cat that asked for nothing in return for his undying friendship. In his last days he was hurting in many ways. His teeth were sore, his kidneys were shutting down, and his badder was blocked. He purred to the end. Goodbye, goodbye. Sleep in tomorrow you good old cat, you're finally at rest.

Acrylic painting by Erin 2003 ©

What Do Pachinko Games Have To Do With Downsizing?

Grandma takes over for Jake when she gets hooked on Pachinko

I've been advertising things on Kijiji in an effort to downsize. We've had lots of practice this past year with the 62 year accumulated treasures of Wendy's Mom Gene.

I got rid of my four big 'train station' double-sided IBM clocks that adorned my garage walls for 30 years for $150 and I'm on the rampage for my barber's chair, misc furniture and anything else not fastened to the house. Nothing is sacred. I figure if we haven't used it in the past year or so, we probably won't! Take no prisoners! When I get back from our cruise in a few weeks, I plan to be even more aggressive. I'm ready for eBay, Kijiji, the Pennysaver, Triad or Auto Trader. It's hard to believe how much we hold on to that really could be turned into cash and used for more productive or pleasurable pursuits like food, booze and travel.

All that being said, I sold the last of my 4 or 5 Pachinko games that I have owned since 1978. Or at least I thought I did. I had it ready for the prospective buyer but he never showed, so we all started playing it at the kitchen table and decided to keep it because we had so much fun! So much for being brutal!

If you don't know what a Pachinko machine is,
click here

Erin's Convocation - MBA

Tears of joy? Erin with friend and fellow graduate Fady


It was a proud day for us. Our daughter Erin officially received her Master of Business Administration degree today.

Straight A's - Good work Erin!

Getting Ready for Graduation

We drove the 200km (60 miles) to Windsor today. Erin's boyfriend Jake rode with us to meet Erin. After Wendy and I checked into our hotel, we walked two blocks to Erin's work and the offices of the International Joint Committee. Her office is on the eighth floor and overlooks the Detroit River and the skyline of Detroit Michigan. She gave us a tour of the office suite and boardroom. Unfortunately, being late Friday afternoon, the "brass" that she wanted us to meet had already left.

Later, in the evening, Erin, Jake, Wendy and I walked to the nearby Chatham Street Grill steakhouse for a most delightful dinner.
We were staying at the Windsor Hilton and also had a great panoramic view. We retired in anticipation of the convocation ceremony scheduled for Saturday morning.

White Van Speaker Scam

I can't possibly post every scam going, but I thought that since this one covered such a wide area, I would let you know about it. I came across it while cruising the internet. Click here to read about these slimy characters and note that the van isn't always white. For North America-wide "distributors" click here. Apparently this is the company's sales strategy and have been operating for 10 years this way.

Two Other Friends are in ‘Sick Bay’

Our lifelong friend Linda has had surgery and been taking treatments. John and Linda, now living in Grand Bend, have shared many wonderful times with us over the decades past.

Also very ill is our friend Graham from Brampton. Graham and Barb were with us on the Sun Princess a year ago. Barb is Reenie's sister and Reenie is married to Dave who was best man at our wedding 35 years ago.

We wish them well and hope they have a complete and speedy recovery.

I've Never seen Prices Like This! $49 to Scotland!

"A trip is even better when you get a cheap flight." 1964 - Scrooge McDuck CAN'T DUCK THE TAX.

Unbelievable value. Cheaper than Florida!
My friend David just got back from visiting his brother Ed in the UK and he plans to return on his way to Barcelona for a cruise in December. He will then go EZ Jet from Gatwick to Barcelona. Thought you might be interested in CAD 49 flights to Europe. He let me in on a little secret. With all taxes in, it will be way cheaper for him and his wife to fly to Gatwick and switch than it would cost for a single return ticket direct to Barcelona Spain! TRY IT YOURSELF:

http://www.canadian-affair.ca/

Actually I just typed in Toronto to Glasgow and got $49 each way Canadian Dollars. If you ever thought of a trip to UK, this would be the ticket. You can go anywhere in Europe by train, plane or automobile from England. Below is what I found by typing Toronto to Glasgow:

instant purchase CAD 49.00 Sun 14 Oct 2007 17:20 04:50 Non-Stop Boeing B757 Thomas Cook Airlines
standard fare CAD 69.00

instant purchase CAD 49.00 Mon 15 Oct 2007 21:20 08:55 Non-Stop Airbus A310 Air Transat
standard fare CAD 69.00

When I tried Kayak.com, Detroit to Barcelona I got $750 US for one person. And at that price, there were no direct flights anyway.

David called me back to say he really hasn't actually booked a cruise from Barcelona but was looking at it. He said to remind everyone that those prices do not include the ubiquitous government and airport taxes and fees that will increase your cost but still should end up under half the fare shown out of U.S. or regular Canadian flights.

Canadian Thanksgiving

Son Tim with Grandma; bird watching on a hot Fall day.


We cooked the turkey poolside. At 82 degrees, it was too hot to use the oven in the house. Running long and low, the cooking time for this 17 pounder took 6 hours. It was moist and delicious.

Hot Child in the City!

Hi Wendy

Cheryl called around 4:00pm they got to the 23 km mark and had to stop. Some of her group were getting sick and there was no water after the 7 km mark...

John

We are very proud of you Cheryl! The courage and energy shown in your terrific effort in light of the excruciating heat and humidity in the Chicago Marathon are beyond our comprehension. Five hours and twenty eight minutes in that 90 degree heat. Wow! Congratulations!!!

You will remember Cheryl and her husband John have been on 3 cruises with us and are going on the October 30^th Caribbean trip out of Fort Lauderdale. Maybe it will be cooler down there.

Attention Participants and Spectators:
Due to the rising heat index and higher than expected temperatures, LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon Executive Race Director Carey Pinkowski and Medical Director Dr. George Chiampas, in cooperation with city officials, have implemented a contingency plan, as a precautionary measure, to effectively close the Marathon course at the halfway point.

Rebuild the Faithful Natural Gas BBQ

Kind of dirty work, but two years is all I usually get out of my burners. I'm sure lots of people get more than that, but we use ours a lot! Since it runs on natural gas (unlimited supply) we do a lot of roasts that run 2 to 4 hours. Fall gives me a good opportunity to do a thorough cleaning and see what else needs to be done. The bolts that hold the burners in place were so corroded I had to drill them out. I also relocated the casters on the bottom to make it easier to swing from where we store it beside the back door. Since this is a Chinese made Loblaws BBQ, I was worried about parts availability but luckily found the exact new burners on the internet. The warm weather of late makes the job of hosing it down a lot easier. Looks like with new burners, I'll get a few more years out of it. Good, because it really does a nice job.