Day 82 of 111 (4/12/19) – Day 1 of 4 at sea towards Natal, Brazil after St. Helena.



Day 81 (4/11/2019) – St. Helena Island. Up close and personal with the world's oldest animal - Jonathan the tortoise – at 187 years old! Jonathan even has his own Wikipedia page – LINK. Jonathan even greeted us when we arrived by standing up and posing for pictures. We thought he might be sedentary, but he was way more spry than I thought he was going to be. Jonathan is an Aldabra Giant Tortoise from the Seychelles. We heard about these old tortoises when we were in the Seychelles and I heard that Jonathan was still alive in St. Helena. I knew that our trip was going to St. Helena so I was hopeful to get to see Jonathan. I never thought we would be able to romp with him in his field! Romp may be taking a bit of a literary license, but he certainly was more active than I thought he would be – at 187! He was about as spry as I felt after scuba diving, wine tasting, visiting the site where Napoleon died, visiting the castle and touring the island. St. Helena (pronounced helleena by the locals) was a very nice surprise. Noted as one of the remotest spots in the world, St. Helena is over 2,000 miles to Africa and 1,800 miles to Natal, Brazil.



Jonathan the tortoise - world's oldest living animal at 187 years old!
St. Helena Island. Our tour group with the Pacific Princess in the background.







Next - 4 days at sea on the way to Natal, Brazil.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
Day 6 – I’m not sure we are ready to face our first non-sea day tomorrow.   We are having a wonderful time on the sea days.   We have fallen into a lovely routine of waking late, working out, walking on the deck in beautiful 70 degree weather then meeting Jan and George for the Elite club snacks at 6:00 PM, going to the show at 6:30 PM and then going to the late dinner with our outstanding waiter Victor from Mexico.   Victor has been a great waiter and really helps make the dinners fun. Today Ingrid and I also fit in wine tasting and trivia.   Hey – we got 16 out of 20, but the winning team got 20/20.   Can’t beat that.   Tomorrow we have a tour in Honolulu and then the rest of the day to explore and buy things we still need. The picture is from our first formal night.   There are 17 formal nights out of the 111 days and it is really fun to see everyone all dressed up. 7 flies tied to date.   I’m getting pretty good a...
Read more

Day 45 of 111 – Arrived in Port Kelang at 7:00 AM and spent the day around Kuala Lumpur

Image
Wow – what an amazing day in Kuala Lumpur. Took a 2 hour ride from our ship with 14 of our cruise friends in a privately-hired van to the Batu Caves north of Kuala Lumpur (KL).   At the top of 272 steps beside a GIANT Golden Statue you will find a monstrous cave that has been turned into a Buddhist monastery. Worth the climb to see inside this beautiful and unique monastery.   There were monks worshiping and you had to take your shoes off to walk into the holy parts and just hope the numerous monkeys that scampered freely in and out of the caves didn’t run off with your shoes.   Our guide, a green-card holding Malaysian with 3 kids, one brain surgeon in LA and two airline pilots, said he had already lost two hats to the monkeys. I hope I get a chance to post some pics. Then it was on to KL and the Petronas Twin Towers. The tour up the towers took you to the crossing bridge at the 43rd floor and you could gaze both up and down while walking between the towers.  ...
Read more