Random thoughts from the sea
Day 13, 2026 Fall Atlantic Sampler Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026; New York City. Chills ran down my spine as the Volendam sailed into New York Harbor today. Yes, there was a windy bite to the air as I joined perhaps 100 of my fellow passengers on the ship’s bow at
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Days 11-12, 2026 Fall Atlantic Sampler Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct. 6-7, 2026; Boston and Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard. If the last few days were about feasting on the food of the Canadian Maritimes, these two days are about visiting friends – some of the past couple of years and others
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Days 7-10, 2026 Fall Atlantic Sampler Friday to Monday, Oct. 2-5, 2026; Charlottetown, PEI; Sydney and Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Leaving behind the new-to-me ports in French-speaking Quebec, I now am in familiar territory and on a quest for mussels and lobster in the Canadian maritime provinces. Prince Edward Island
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Days 2-5, 2026 Fall Atlantic Sampler Sunday-Wednesday, Sept. 27-30, 2026; Quebec City, Saguanay and Baie-Comeau, Quebec, Canada. Bonjour! Merci! It took only a word or two of my high school French for shopkeepers here in Canada’s province of Quebec to immediately answer me in English. Yet in our smaller ports
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Day 1, 2026 Fall Atlantic Sampler Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026; Montreal, Canada. We started our two sightseeing days in Montreal on the hunt for a shoe store. My sister Elaine discovered that creating a packing list doesn’t work if you forget to actually put something in the suitcase. She left
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Day -2, 2026 Fall Atlantic Sampler Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026; Montreal, Canada. I struggled on Wednesday to turn my loaded luggage cart through the serpentine taxi line at Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport. My sisters Eloise and Elaine managed their own luggage without the aid of a free cart. They are
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Days 12-15, 2026 Alaska Explorer Thursday to Saturday, Sept. 3-6, 2026; Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. The theme of this Alaska cruise is turning out to be friendship. I just wrote about meeting two new friends in Juneau. Earlier we were disappointed to miss seeing friends in Anchorage
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Days 10-11, 2026 Alaska Explorer Tuesday and Wednesday, Sept. 1-2, 2026; Juneau and Ketchikan, Alaska. As I have spent the past four years living on ships, it is no surprise than many of my friends are those who sail with me. Most of the people I visited this summer are
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Days 4-7, 2026 Alaska Explorer Wednesday to Saturday, Aug. 26-29 2026; Kodiak, Anchorage and Valdez, Alaska. I first visited Alaska on a business trip. When our employees in Anchorage learned I was from Texas, they delighted in bragging about how much bigger Alaska is than Texas. In fact, I learned
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Day 3, 2026 Alaska Explorer Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026; At Sea in the North Pacific Ocean. Back in June when I booked this 14-day Alaska cruise, I knew cooler temperatures would be a nice break from August in the Midwest. I didn’t realize then how excited I would be to
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