October 24 & 25 - Sea Day & Fort Lauderdale

October 24 & 25, 2024 – Thursday and Friday        Day 29 & 30 of this journey 

Sea Day and Ft. Lauderdale, Florida 

Sea Day: 

Usually, on a sea day, there isn’t much to relate. However, Viking is really trying hard to come up with things to entertain the Longitudinal World Cruisers. In the morning, we had a Survival Tournament in The Hide. We weren’t sure this was something we wanted to do, but kind of got talked into attending. 

The day started off with a gorgeous sunrise

There were about 20 people in attendance. We were given the scenario that our ship had sunk including the loss of the entire crew. We had a life raft, and a box of matches. We were given a list of 15 items that we needed to rank in order of importance to our survival. We had divided up into teams of 4. First, individually, we ranked the items, then we ranked the items as a group. We were then given the actual ranking as determined by the US Coast Guard. We compared our original rankings with the Coast Guard to get a personal score, then compared the group’s rankings against the Coast Guard to get a team score. The team with the lowest score won this round. Our team won! 

We will meet again in the next couple of weeks to go through the process again with a different scenario. The next time, we will be lost in the jungle. It was a lot more fun than we anticipated. We look forward to the next one. 

At 3:00 pm, Viking held a High Tea for the World Cruisers. Very very nice. Everything looked wonderful. We didn’t eat much as we were having dinner with the Captain that evening at 6:00 pm. The Captain’s dinner was also very nice. The four highest ranking officers of the ship joined us.

 

Fort Lauderdale: 

We pulled into Fort Lauderdale around 7:00 am. Coming in right behind us was a Celebrity cruise ship with about 2,700 passengers.

Most of the passengers of our ship are disembarking today. The ship has arranged a couple of tours for the World Cruisers. One is a drive around of Miami. About 1/3 of us took that tour. The rest had opted for an “optional” tour of an airboat ride in the Everglades. That is what we chose. 

Loaded onto the usual tour bus, we headed west into the Everglades. Our guide, Lance, is a hoot, but also a wealth of information on the area and alligators. He is passionate about his job and sharing the information in a light and entertaining manner. It took about an hour to arrive at the Safari Park. They have been in operation for about 50 years. We started with an airboat ride into the grasslands looking for wildlife. We had been advised that there wouldn’t be a lot of birds. As conditions have been changing with climate change, the birds have found new areas that are better suited to their needs. 

We did see Great Blue Herons, Egrets, Anhinga (Oriental Darter), and one alligator. The Park guide driving the airboat also said that the recent hurricane had caused a lot of the wildlife to head for islands that are in the river. And that would make it a bit harder for spotting critters.

An Anhinga (Oriental Darter)

An egret

Lower 1/3, center are black bumps. That is an alligator.

Although the Everglades appear swamp like, it is a river. Perhaps the slowest moving river in the world. But the water does move, therefore you don’t have the rot, stagnation and odor of a swamp. 

After about 45 minutes on the airboat, we returned to the dock and were then treated to a session of show-and-tell about some of the resident alligators. These gators were born in captivity and, by law, must remain in captivity. One of the four we saw is 50 years old. Lance had told us about this part of the program and assured us that these gators are very well cared for. He shared that they are quite intelligent and even trainable.

This is the old man.

This one is about 15 years old. He was quite interested in a snack.

This is the old guy again. It took a little more to get him moving.

Two of the younger ones.

The gentleman doing the talking about gators was quite obviously fond of them and they really responded to him. After the show, Lance walked with us through paths and boardwalks that wind through the vegetation. We saw numerous alligators, and turtles. Many species of plants that were extremely important to the indigenous peoples.

A young gator, just hanging out

This plant is everywhere. I think it was called spaderdoc.
Similar to water lilies.

About in the middle is a piece of fruit. It is a swamp apple.
An important part of the indigenous diet.

There was a small restaurant and most of us chose to get a bite to eat before we headed back to Fort Lauderdale. We chose gator bites and loaded French fries. Both were quite good. 

Back in Fort Lauderdale, the bus parked just off Las Olas Boulevard. Las Olas is a prime shopping venue. Russ and I stayed on the bus as we weren’t particularly interested in “shopping”. We got back to the ship right around 3:00 pm as planned. 

The Aula (our on-board theater) is closed for several days while the curtains are being replaced. So, the afternoon Daily Briefing is being filmed and viewable on our stateroom TV. It worked out well, but I think I prefer the live version. Tomorrow is another sea day, so there won’t be a whole lot on our agenda. 

We had dinner in The Restaurant, sharing a table with a couple from BC that embarked today. When we got back to the room, we discovered a lovely bouquet of flowers from the Viking team.

The third leg of this journey has begun. The next transition will be in Valparaiso (Santiago), Chile 17 days from now. It should be an interesting couple of weeks, but with lots more sea days than what we have had up to now.