Azores and Tristan Jones

Wednesday, May 8, 2013 Punta Delgada, Azores
Land ho!  Finally!

Blue and Green Lakes

Carole always plans our shore trips. She doesn't like the ones I pick.  It is like the guys on "Big Bang Theory" picking movies to attend and expecting their girl friends to like them.  FYI she also picks the movies we watch.

Village near lake

We had several options of trips here. One of the recommended ones was a trip to Crater Lake where there is two adjacent lakes one green and the other is blue.  There is a romantic legend about how a princess and her poor Sheppard boy friend cried the lakes full because of their forbidden love.  She had blue eyes and he had green thus the color of the lakes. There is a beautiful little town adjacent to the lake in the bottom of the crater you can visit.  There are estate homes and little peasant cottages where the laundry ladies took in wash and washed clothes in the lake, making the people on the island have the freshest clothes of anywhere.

Cows have Right of Way

That wasn't the one she picked!  We rode around the island, on a bus, in the fog with the guide telling us what we were supposed to be seeing!  The bus was stopped a couple of times while cows were moved between fields.  Most of the cows are for milk production.  They don’t have any milk barns; they bring the milking equipment to the field and milk the cows in the pasture.  From what we could see in the thirty feet thru the fog it is a very lush island with flowers everywhere.  They used hydrangea plants to divide the fields in lieu of barbed wire.  The dirt looked like it could grow anything.
We head out again at 2:30 today to France.
I am more than certain that Carole has picked out a better shore trip for the next harbor.

Thursday, May 9, 2013 at sea
One day in port and the sea doesn't seem as forbidding as before.  It is definitely getting cooler.  We lose a degree or so every day.  We started with sea and air temperatures in the low 70's, now we are down to 62.
Several years ago I installed an app, Latitude, on our phones. It makes it easy to find out where Carole is without calling and asking. Back when she was spending a lot of time with her mother in Tuscaloosa I would know what kind of progress she was making getting home.  Michael has it on his phone, so I know where he is also.  (So does Paul, but he keeps it turned off so we can't track him.  Makes you wonder why.)  Michael said he has been tracking us across the Atlantic with the app. I guess when I log in to check email that is just one of the background things going on with the phone.  I thought it was a cool app before but if it will track you across the Atlantic, it has been moved up to really cool now.

Friday, May 10, 2013 at sea
I feel like I should start this with "Onboard Infinity, Star Date May 10".  Today is one of those days when you have to sit down to pee.  We are rolling so much you have to hold on with both hands to keep from falling.  You go down the hallways bouncing off each wall as the ship rolls.
I have officially caught up on my sleep. 5:30 is as long as I could stay in bed.  I can just take so much resting before it starts to hurt.  I have instruction to not wake Carole up before 8:00.  She has always needed more sleep than me.  I can operate very well on six hours a night, she needs seven to eight.  I like to get up early, have my coffee and some quite time every morning.  4:30 was my normal time before I started this retirement thing.  I have worked my way up to 5:30 now, but it wasn’t easy.
So what do you do on a ship at sea all day?  Well you just piss the day away but you don't start doing that until about 10:30.  We have been reading a lot, something I rarely do.  Maybe I should rephrase that, because I read all the time.  I normally do not have time to read fiction because of all the technical stuff that is required reading.

Tristan at the Annapolis Boat Show 1987

Yesterday we went to a lecture on the author Tristan Jones. Tristan_Jones Wikipedia Link I have read all his books and would recommend them to anyone.  The books are autobiographical and tell of great adventures. He died about ten years ago and had lost both legs due to his adventures. The books when I read them were a little too adventurous and had some things that were a little too inconsistent.  There has always been speculation that much of the adventures were fabricated. The speaker had spent several years researching Tristan and his adventures and found most of them to be pure fabrications of Tristan's mind.  I personally don't have any issues with an embellished, semi true story.  (I have been known to do this myself.)  The man was quite a character, con man and chronic liar.  He lost his legs from being diabetic cause from hard drinking.  In the books his loss of limbs is from wounds suffered in a war.  Of course there is no record of him being in a combat position in wartime.  I still highly recommend reading the books.  Read them as he intended them and don't worry about the details.  They are fun to read.
The California couple that are our table mates are a lot of fun.  We have enjoyed getting to know them and sharing semi-true stories.  Dinner normally takes two hours or more by the time you work thru all different courses on the menu.  After that we are off to a show in the theater.  The shows are great, which is one of the reasons we like Celebrity Cruise Lines.  We have sailed on three other lines but I don't think you can beat the quality of Celebrity.

I don't like going to funerals

I went to a funeral today.  I don’t like going to funerals for several reasons.  The main one being someone I knew died, Hack Sain.  I have known Hack since 1971.  He died at the age of 90.  Went to church on Wednesday night came home and died in his sleep. 

Although I have known him for a long time, I didn't know him all that well.  I saw him from time to time.  Our paths would cross on projects and we would see each other at meetings.  We were both active in engineering organizations and I would see him at meetings.  He was a talented engineer and was actively involved in the engineering community up until the time of his death.  He was like a big dog.  He would come thru the center of the room with a loud voice happy to see everyone.  I never saw him when he wasn't smiling and had a story to tell.  He was the mentor for a lot of engineers.  Always willing to share his knowledge.  The funeral was a celebration of his life. 

When I come time for us to leave the earth let’s all hope that we can be remember for the good we do and the legacy we leave behind, like Hack.