This year's crossing was on the Seabourn Odyssey. It's a beautiful ship, but upon arriving in Florida, we decided that the Seabourn crowd's a little stuffy. Oh, not the crew, mind you, they're great. Especially the bartender who whipped up the best Gibsons after tea while our Portuguese waiter tried to entice us with sandwiches and sweets. His descriptions of the tea cakes were priceless. He could describe that chocolate cake in a manner that'd make your mouth water, but struggled with one of the items. That one was "it's pink, it has a red thing on the top, and there's a cookie on the bottom". We roared!
OK, first stop, Malaga, Spain where the park along the waterfront was in bloom:
No stop in Malaga is complete without a stop at their fabulous market for sugar-coated dried figs and Marcona almonds. This time, the vendor showed us how to pop the fig open, but the almond inside, and take a bite that'll send you straight to heaven. Malaga's beach seen from the cruise terminal:
Next stop, Gibraltar. We didn't go ashore because town was too far for Pati's toe to handle and the view from the ship was fine. All day long, the wind passing over the "rock" continued to generate this cloud!
We were happy to visit Funchal, Madeira again. They've done a lot of work along the waterfront and now it's a beautiful park/event area. Here's our humble ship photographed from the park.
Here's the park!
Another town park, this one located kitty-corner from the lovely Hotel Madeira, where we've always stayed.
Casting off from Funchal, nine days at sea stretched ahead, including a bout with heavy weather. Everything that could be tied down, was. The wind howled all night, the ship tossed like a cork, the Captain was on the bridge all night, and in the morning everyone looked a bit green. The weather did improve after a couple of days. But in the middle of the Atlantic, there were no ships to see, no aircraft overhead. We were totally alone out there, a little over 500 passengers and a couple of stowaway seabirds, with well-stocked bars, plenty of lamb chops, the wind at our back and a Scotsman at the helm.
Made it to Ft. Lauderdale! We took a couple of days to look at the Ft. Myers area and decided that Florida, for the most part, looks the same no matter where one goes. So we drove back to Palm Beach for cuban food before flying home. Three weeks until departure for the Amazon rain forest!
