Seasons of Cactus

Much of the prickly pear cactus near us has changed color from green to a sort of copper color.

While the Sunny Weather Lasts

The weather service forecasts really cold and snowy weather for El Paso for the next couple of days, with a predicted low of 12 degrees F. (!) Wednesday night. On Sunday Susie and I took advantage of the warm sunny weather to hike above our house. Here's a picture of the intrepid hiker, framed by the Thunderbird and South Mount Franklin.

Home Again

On the last day of our cruise, the Coral Princess arrived in Long Beach, CA just as dawn was breaking.
We sailed past the phalanxes of giant cranes that signaled the importance of this busy port, turning left just before the bridge and entering a slip. The terminal was set up with immigrations officials. We were among the first off the ship, which was a good thing because the immigrations computers were afflicted with some sort of problem--occurring nationwide--that slowed processing to a trickle.
Before we disembarked, from the ship we could see the southern California landscape of urban development and snow-covered mountains, which served as a contrast with the tropical and sub-tropical views of the last two weeks and as a reminder that we were nearly home.
As our plane climbed out of LAX, we could see the Coral Princess docked in Long Beach.
And not far away lay the Queen Mary, also berthed in Long Beach, now a museum-hotel.
As we neared El Paso, the landscape turned to desert, which we could see covered with winter's mantle of snow.
After 15 days of cruising, from Fort Lauderdale to Long Beach, from Atlantic to Pacific, we were home.

Sailboat Racing in Cabo San Lucas

In Cabo San Lucas Susie and got to participate in a mock America's Cup race as crew on a real America's cup yacht with Cabo Adventures. We were on NZL 82, which defended the cup for New Zealand in 2003. For a long-time sailboat racer like me, who doesn't have a much a chance to sail in El Paso, this was a real treat.

The guests/crew provided the muscle for tacks and gybes, as well as for raising the sails. Here are Susie and me hard at work raising the jib. The pro crew were outstanding, including serious Americas Cup veterans and long-distance racers. Just getting to sail with these guys was an adventure in itself.
There wasn't a ton of wind, but we still had a spirited race. Susie worked as a grinder aft.

For the first lap, I handled the port winch; for the final lap, I worked as a grinder while the pros handled the lines.


Our boat ended up second, having to perform a penalty turn after a close crossing. We had a lot of fun, of course, capped off with a cold Mexican beer.

After we headed back to the Coral Princess and our ship was sailing out out of the harbor at Cabo San Lucas, I could see NZL 82 racing again, with its afternoon crew, with the sun's reflection glittering across the waters.

For their excursion, other passengers on the ship had gone whale-watching. We lucked out by getting to see whales from the Coral Princess as we left Cabo San Lucas. My camera was always slower than the whales, but in the lower left of this picture you can see a whale's tail.
Cabo San Lucas is at the very southern end of the Baja Peninsula. As the Coral Princess turned northwest toward Los Angeles, we rounded the cape. In a day and half we'd be back in the USA.

Acapulco from the Ship

The Coral Princess sailed into Acapulco as the sun rose. Susie and I rose, too, but we stayed onboard rather than going into town. We wanted to have a ship-as-resort day while, we expected, many of the other passengers would be ashore. So we had fun, enjoying the ship as a kind of waterfront resort hotel. And for a dose of urban reality, we could look out onto the Acapulco cityscape from the ship.

From Puntarenas to Acapulco

Our ship, which traveled at about 20 knots, took around 40 hours to go from Puntarenas, Costa Rica, to Acapulco, Mexico. We sailed northwest along the Pacific coast of Central America, past Nicaragua, a little bit of Honduras, El Salvador and then Guatemala, then sailing along the coast of Mexico. Here's the view I had of El Salvador at sunrise.
And here's the Mexican coast later in the day.

Eco-tour in Costa Rica

When we arrived in Costa Rica, the ship docked practically on the beach.
While Shari and Stuart partook of a zip-line adventure, Susie and I opted for an eco-tour through the forest canopy via an aerial tramway. The tramway was a sort of slow-moving ski-lift, except that there were eight-passenger gondolas instead of chairs, and there certainly wasn't any snow.

The tramway took us through a transition of eco-systems, so we got to see a variety of forest plant life. Throughout the forest and the botanical garden at the tramway's base, bromeliads flourished. Here's one, high up in a tree as we passed by.

The botanical garden had some spectacular tropical plants, including varieties of ginger. Here are a couple of the blossoms we saw.














We saw a variety of wildlife, both in at the park and along the way. We got to see army ants marching along. We also got to see another white-faced monkey, up in one of the trees.
In another tree, outside the park, perched a scarlet macaw, which later flew away, showing all of its spectacular plumage.
The grounds of the park hosted numerous iguanas. We did not have "chicken of the trees" for lunch, but rather a really nice lunch at the park featuring native dishes with, presumably real, chicken.
On the way back to the ship, we crossed a river where, on the bank, several crocodiles were hanging out. Here are two of them.