Wednesday, February 1, 2012

At Sea & Cabo San Lucas - January 31 - February 1

The first three days in a row “At Sea” went by quickly and on February 1st the Queen Elizabeth arrives at Cabo San Lucas.

On January 31 we heard an interesting lecture on the Mayans. Then we attended the last concert by Mark Tanner (piano) & Gillian Poznansky (flute) which was a delightful 45 minutes interlude in our day.  Captain Wells was signing books outside the book store and during the evening was a variety show with Kuba Kawnick on the vibraphone and Paul Dabek, a magician.  During this variety show, there was a man heckling the magician – like the old man at the Muppet Movie at Disney World. Did he finally get unbolted and escape from Disney World?

Today as the ship anchors off Cabo San Lucas famous Land’s End, we see a whale and some dolphins.  Cabo is at the end of the Baja California peninsula and, until 25 years ago, was a sleepy little fishing village.  Now it is definitely a resort town.  We see many condos and hotels from the shore with large homes up on the hillsides.  A huge yacht is anchored offshore like us and in the harbor are many sizable yachts.  The Sea of Cortez is the body of water between the Baja peninsula and mainland Mexico.  This peninsula was formed by the San Andreas Fault.  The Sea of Cortez is home to many unique marine species, some found nowhere else in the world.

Our tour is on a boat to see the beautiful beaches and to take a closer look at El Arco, The Arch, a natural rock formation among the pinnacles, which allegedly are the most Westerly pieces of land until you reach Polynesia.  Sea lions have found their home on the rocks by the arch and can be heard ‘barking’ as the tour boat cruises by.   After we return to the dock, a bus takes us through the town where there are lots of shops and we note many U.S. stores like Home Depot, Costco, Sam’s Club, Starbucks, McDonalds and Burger King.  We are able to get some nice pictures of the town and rock formations….and even a glimpse of a whale or two.

The weather has been 75 and sunny – perfect.  We sail away this evening heading up the coast towards San Francisco on Saturday.

Nautical Terms:
Mind your Ps and Qs:  Stood for the pints and quarts that sailors would drink on credit at the local pubs.
Tonnage:  A measure of the size or cargo carrying capacity of a ship.

Cruise Musings:  As you queue in lines on tours, inevitably you will be behind Mr. & Mrs. Oblivious.  These are people who are in their own world, not keeping up with the line and not listening to the tour guides.
Every day you will see people who you have never met before and then you will see the same people over and over.  There are also lots of Florida doppelgangers onboard, reminding us of friends now far away.
When we walk by the casino area that has a slot machine that plays a short weird tune every time we walk by it….kind of a twilight zone moment….is it calling us to play?

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