In the End: Part 2 -- Baltic Cruise and a Transatlantic Crossing

Port Canaveral, Florida
Latitude 28° 24' 46” N
October 8, 2011

In the end, we spent 24 days on the Norwegian Sun and travelled, between the two cruises, a total of 8,641 miles—2,290 on the Baltic portion and 6,350 miles on the transatlantic portion. The great ship made port calls in ten countries—Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Russia, Finland, Sweden, The Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal and the United States.

In the end, the Baltic portion of the cruise was overkill. There were too many ports in too short a time. Eight hours in a capital city, barely scratching the surface of the place is, at least to me, supremely frustrating. On my first cruise I’d made peace with the idea that it’s about the boat and not about the land. I guess I’ve lost that. I have a much deeper curiosity about people and places and much prefer to spend longer than a third of day in a country.

In the end, we spent 16 days on the transatlantic portion of the cruise, with only four of those days in ports. In all, we spent 319 hours sailing between Europe and North America. That averages to 19.5 miles per hour. I ride my bike faster than that. But this was not about speed. It was all about crossing, taking one’s time, enjoying the great expanse of ocean, of being in the middle of the sea, in the great fresh open of the Atlantic, being very, very far away. The sea is its own distant land, a land I’d never known before. It was everything I could have imagined—days spent under a powerful and exaggerated sky, languid days that ended when light would fade and the sky turned a dark, sweet blue. It was people and good food and tango classes at 10:00 a.m.

In the end, I will continue to cruise, despite what I’ve said. Life aboard a ship is great fun and it’s no hardship to spend day after day at sea. But I won’t cruise just to say I’ve been to a place. Having said that, there are places where a cruise makes sense—The Northwest Passage, the Antarctic, down the Amazon or on European river cruises where there is, at least, some connection to the land. And after a month’s touring some corner of Europe of South America…what a great way to come home.

In the end, I’d forgotten how nice it is to travel in Europe. It’s been years since I’ve been on the continent. In fact, I’d never used a Euro. But I won’t stay away. There are too many places to revisit and many more I’ve never seen. It’s outrageously expensive, especially in the north, but there are ways to economize. What was a bit alarming was that I had no memory of some of the places I’d visited years earlier. That was the case in Copenhagen and again in Lisbon. My thinking is that I spent very little time in those capital cities. As now, as it was in the past, I much prefer smaller towns to cities. Perhaps I just passed through. The journals I wrote during those trips will tell me.

In the end, we’re already talking about the next cruise—or cruises as it were. Panama Canal. Alaska’s Inside Passage. More Caribbean. And those are only with NCL!

In the end, I will try to get back to St. Petersburg and back to Portugal and the Azores, each for a longer stay. The splendors of St. Petersburg require far more than a two day gloss-over and Portugal…well, with its fine weather and Latin heart, this is a place I could stay in for a long, long time.

In the end, the cruise brought us through seven different time zones and from the 60th Parallel to the 28th! A total of 32 degrees—all of it on water. We changed our clocks eight times, sometimes as often as every night. How nice it was, in the finally stretch, to roll back an hour each night and have eight 25 hour days!

In the end I’d fulfilled one of my life’s travel dreams—crossing the Atlantic on sea. Yay! Cross one more off the Bucket List.

In the end, it was great.