Genoa Waterfront and Aquarium

It is (still) Tuesday, 28 August 2007 and we emerge from the alleyways of Genoa onto the waterfront.

We emerge into the shadows of the elevated roadway but having crossed the roadway at ground level and passed under the elevated flyover, we come out into sunshine once again. There is an aquarium nearby and we are in no hurry to rush back to the ship so we decide to go for a look.

We are first directed into a cinema to see a 3D film about deep sea creatures. Of course - we can't understand a word as it's in Italian! The first tanks we come to hold jellyfish and whilst it is too dark to get sharp photos (flash was not allowed) the colours are fabulous.

It was a large and well-stocked aquarium and had some absolutely huge tanks. There were sharks and dolphins too, although I always feel it a shame to keep such intelligent creatures as whales in captivity as even their large environment had to seem very confining to them. It also had no vegetation, furniture to swim around or through and no playthings to stimulate them.

There were three dolphns in the tank and this one kept coming up to me to say "hello", or more likely, "help! Can you get me the hell out of here?" The captive dolphins' smile does them no favours at all... it's easy to assume that they love it where they are.

There were giant sea turtles, a pool with seals and a flat fish touch pool.

There was a superbly set out penguin pool with the water surface at eye level so that you could view the penguins both in the water and above. We spent a good hour and a half to two hours in the aquarium and thoroughly enjoyed it, although there was that touch of guilt about enjoying the dolphins. I'd much rather see them in the sea even if they are a much rarer sight and harder to spot!

A huge ship of the line battleship is moored along the waterfront, I'm guessing but it must carry somewhere around 70 guns. You can count over 30 gunports on the side, double for the other side and there would be stern chasers and bow guns. A standard British ship of the line of the late 18th century carried 74 guns.

As we walk west along the marina we pass in front of the basttleship and get a better view of the figurehead. A bus passes behind us, ooh -they have trolleybuses here!

The flyover is a bit in-your-face and dominates the seafront of Genoa. However it allows traffic to flow freely along what would otherwise be a pedestrian heavy environment and slower, frequently stopping traffic such as buses can operate at ground level without obstructing or delaying through traffic.

The Stazione Marittima, with it's sculpture of the prow of a galley under the pediment and fountain playing over a ship's screw. As we reached the ship, we came up behind Cissie and Ada on the gangplank. "Do you want to get past?"
"How?"
"I can't go fast!"
"You are going fast enough!"

We went for a spot of lunch and joined the two ladies on the pool deck. "Do you want to borrow my sun cream?" asked Cissie, pushing a plastic bottle of Nivea sun lotion at me. The top was wedged on with a rather soggy tissue.
"What's this for?" I asked.
"The top won't stay on..." The tissue was between the top of the bottle and the lid, wedging the lid open. I pulled the tissue off and the lid clicked shut. "Well, I can't press it hard enough," she said. I replaced the tissue...
"Tell him what you did when you got it," Ada said to Cissie. She began her distinctive laugh - a sort of "Hih hih hih!"
"I asked my son to get it for me," she said, "but I got confused and asked him to get me some viagra by mistake!"

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Back Onboard the Island Star

It's Monday 27 August 2007 and we have returned to the Island Star cruise ship after our excursion to Pisa.

Something had taken up residence in our cabin! We dropped off some things and picked up others and went up on deck where Cissie and Ada waved us over to their table by the Pool Deck bar. "Have a Heineken Light," they said, "They're two-for-one!" They started telling us about the karaoke they had been to on the previous night. "Are you going to have a go?" So it came out that I played in a band. The name though was a bit much for Cissie... "Creeping what???" she spluttered. It got worse. Just about every day, at least three times, she would stop whatever she was doing, fix me with an eye and say hopefully, "Is it... Grumbleweeds?"

"No..." we'd say, "it's Creeping..."
"Creeping!" she'd cry triumphantly.
"Yes! Creeping what though?"
"Creeping Lightfield?"
No... Creeping Bent..."
"Creeping Bentfield!"

"Well, you're not the bent one..." commented Ada as a gorgeous girl walked past in a tiny bikini and I went momentarily cross-eyed.

We had our meal in the Beachcomber restaurant onboard. This was open 24 hours every day. It had two identical halves and one was open whilst the other one was being cleaned and re-stocked. There was plenty of choice, starters, salads, themed main meals (one night it would be Italian, another Chinese etc.) and there was always something for those who had simpler basic appetites. There were plenty of sweets and desserts also, accompanied by fruit sculptures such as this rabbit.

There were mousses and flans, puddings and custard, ice creams and cheese and biscuits. There was a huge bowl labelled Berry Sauce which was absolutely luscious.

This was the most relaxed of the restaurants aboard. There was also a steak restaurant, a second Silver Service restaurant and a mid-range restaurant. Add to those an on-deck grill serving burgers, hotdogs and chicken etc. and there was plenty of opportunity to pile on the pounds. You could literally eat all day. Indeed there was breakfast, elevenses, lunch, afternoon tea, evening meals from around 5:00pm and the odd midnight snacks! I actually lost 4 pounds during the week - chuffed or what?!? I think it was all the running from one restaurant to the other...

Exhausted by eating we went up on deck and helped ourselves to a coffee. It was getting nicely into twilight. A splash caught my eye. Then there was another. Could it be? Oh yes - there one has jumped clear of the water for a second. "Dolphins, if anyone's interested!" The ship's rail got suddenly full although there were only a few dolphins and they weren't frolicking out of the water too much. Keeping an eye on where the last one surfaced meant you missed the next and most people soon got tired of trying to spot them. I did manage to grab this shot - the only one of half a dozen to actually feature a dolphin, though the quality won't win any competitions!

Miss Franny was too busy chilling out to take much notice anyway. A full moon hung in the sky, reflected in a long trail on the water. I was torn between feeling amorous and keeping an eye out for werewolves - you can't be too careful...

As it got colder with the disappearance of the daylight, we moved back indoors and watched the casino players for a while then took up a couple of seats near the ship's photographers who had set up a makeshift studio with a simple white background along one of the walkways. The best part of a bottle of wine followed by John Smith's dark nectar made me rash. "Come on then, we'll have our photo taken!"

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Colourful Coasts (Canary Isles) on Thomson Celebration, 4-11 April 2014

This is a series of articles covering our trip around the Canary Islands on the Thomson Celebration cruise ship. Once more meeting up with our friends, Tomas and Maris who sing as 2 Intense onboard the ship, we will be taking it easy on this trip, with far more independent trips ashore than excursions.

Click each of the photos below to view the associated articles and photographs.

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Atlantic Dolphins Come To Look At The Humans

Tuesday 8 April 2014. Thomson Celebration spent a day at sea as we sailed from Madeira to Agadir on the coast of Morocco. We were making good use of our balcony and, having missed out on our previous dolphin and whale sighting, I had hung the camera strap over my chair with the telephoto lens attached so I could grab it in an instant.

Staring at the sea for hours is pretty boring after the first 20 minutes of anticipation wears off. So I was reading (or dozing) when I became aware that a small crowd were gathering and pointing on the deck above me.

I peered out to where they were pointing and saw in the distance a bit of disturbance on the surface. Dolphins in the wild do jump out occasionally but not to order. They do surf as a group too, coming out and diving back in unison but generally these are shallow dives without clearing the water altogether.

So most of my shots show them under the water. Also we were on Deck 9 - something like being on the 9th floor of a building, so we were a long way above them! The telephoto lens was very necessary but meant that finding the very fast-moving critters was just a touch difficult!

This was my only shot of a dolphin out of the water and this one was quite a distance from the ship. They did come quite close to the side of the ship. I suspect they like to swim and jump the troughs of the wake that ships create from cleaving through the water. But to do that they are swimming fast and difficult to follow with a long lens.

This is my best shot and just a split second after the head of the dolphin fell back into the water. So close and yet...

Colourful Coasts Cruise Index

La Isla Bonita

Strains of Madonna flit through my head. It's Sunday 6 April 2014 and we have arrived at La Isla Bonita or La Palma as it's more properly known.

The Thomson Celebration moors up in the port of Santa Cruz de La Palma and we have an early breakfast as we are taking an excursion tour today.

Our first stop is at the Caldera de Taburiente National Park. The Caldera is a massive crater. Whilst it looks volcanic - and probably is - the crater was actually formed by natural erosion not a mighty cataclysm. It is huge though - 10 kilometres across and, at its highest point, almost 2.5 kilometres from the peak to the floor.

It is home to some pretty tame ravens as seen in our photo above. A few more photos are called for...

We set off as a group walking around to a viewpoint. They set off at a pace though and I found I was starting to feel the old angina making its presence felt after a bit, so we stopped and started back at a more leisurely pace. In fact the pace had been too much to actually admire the view - the ground was rocky and the drop at the side of the path extremely deep, so you tended to walk with your eyes firmly fixed as to where to place your feet! Taking it a bit easier meant you could enjoy the view a lot more.

Another couple joined us coming back. They were also struggling with the pace and she said she was quite relieved when we turned back as she didn't want to be the first.

We got back safely to the coach and had time to sit on a wall and relax a bit whilst the rest of the party came back.

Coming back we passed a sleeping giant...

Can you make him out? He's gone to sleep holding his pride and joy...

The Mirador de La Concepcion. Overlooking some brave souls who have built their houses around the crater of a volcano! It a few thousand - tens of thousands - of years since it made any fireworks, but still...

Form the viewpoint we could see Tenerife's Mt Teide floating in the haze above the sea. You could make out snow on the slopes near the summit. Once we got back on the ship I twiddled the pencil for a bit from our balcony. This wasn't a large sketch - I drew it across the top of the A5 pad so it only took a few minutes.

We also visited a small church - the Santurio Virgen de Las Nieves, the Sanctuary of the Virgin of the Snows. This was quite crowded and we found out that a christening had been taking place. Just what you want in the middle of a family event - a load of camera toting tourists turning up...

Coming out of La Palma was a, or the experience of the cruise. Half an hour out of the harbour we were watching dolphins playing about in the sea from the balcony. I didn't have the camera to hand (but there will be some photos of dolphins from another day). However the real star of the show this day was a huge whale which majestically emerged from under the ship, which it had crossed beneath, and it was easily ten times the size of the dolphins, some of which were playing above it and not much more than the size of half its tail flukes. Awesome!

Colourful Coasts Cruise Index

A Life on the Ocean Wave

5 March 2004. A day at sea as the cruise ship Carousel sails from Agadir in Morocco towards Madeira.

We start the day with a good breakfast - we need the energy to walk 5 times round the crowded Promenade Deck to complete a mile. Oh... er... well, not so crowded then...

Then we spend much of the day lazing on the Pool Deck. The weather is gorgeous and the sunbeds are fully loaded with the bodies gorgeous - not so easily spotted amongst the bodies bloated... I kept mine covered - the world is not ready for that to be unleashed!

The Entertainments Crew kept us all amused with more silly competitions - this being the Duckathon... No I can't remember the details, but it was something along the lines of the plastic ducks having to be rescued from the pool and deposited somewhere against the clock and the one who rescued most was the winner. Something like that.

I had my nose in my book most of the day - Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid and (according to Fran) a steady stream of snorts of laughter issued from me embarrassing her no end... I'm sure she exaggerates... At one point two pods of dolphins passed the ship all leaping in unison, around 60 of them altogether - a wonderful sight. Later another couple flashed at extreme speed right under my nose as I looked down the side of the ship at the sea. It spoiled us - I've never seen as many again on a cruise - in fact on the last two cruises we did we didn't see any at all.

In the afternoon one of the chefs came out to carve fruit into animals. Good entertaining stuff on a cruise ship - didn't impress Simon Cowell much on Britain's Got Talent a couple of months ago, but on a lazy day on a cruise ship you just go with the flow!

As the ship was at sea, the casino and all the shops were open. We had a wander around the ship and Fran got rid of a tenner's worth of tokens on the fruit machines in a most efficient manner! Join us soon for tomorrow's trip to Madeira!

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