Adventure is our state of mind
What is it about staring out at the thin line between blue sea and blue sky that stops time? Cruises come in all guises from luxurious ocean behemoths to river boats and barges to ice-cutters and small ships that docks in tiny ports no one has ever heard of. Read here about the cruises and the shore excursions that link land and sea..
The Yangtze river was low, the ship tied up far below us at Chongqing docks and the funicular train down to it was broken. We were faced with a long flight of stairs lugging our suitcases, then across several gangplanks to our ship. What were we to … [Read more...]
The word “maybe” is out. We might see some, but there is no guarantee. Do we still want to go? We do. A guide points us toward our transportation, an 8-wheel-drive Argo. We'll be taking this vehicle, a cross between a tractor and a boat, to see … [Read more...]
The taste of salt was strong on the wind as we sailed past cliffs that dropped to a wave-dashed tumble of stones below. Beyond this cluster of cliff-bound islands known as St. Kilda, open Atlantic stretched to the gray line of the horizon. The … [Read more...]
As we approached the ship, an opening skirl sounded from a piper on the upper deck, and he piped us aboard to the rousing strains of Scotland the Brave. So began our immersion into Scotland’s Western Isles, where more often than the highland … [Read more...]
I am sitting on Warren Island in Maine's Penobscot Bay, watching a mountain of lobsters redden on an open fire. Bob Tassi -- ship captain, Grammy-award winning recording engineer, and musician -- is playing songs written by his grandfather on the … [Read more...]
For some reason, concert pianist Gilles Vonsattel had never learned to play Clair de Lune, a staple of the piano repertoire. But strolling the decks of Compagnie du Ponant's mega-yacht, l'Austral on a moonlit evening on the Aegean Sea, he was … [Read more...]
I am staring at the eighty-pound helmet that will encapsulate my head: Will it be as weightless underwater as I am told? And the stingrays are on my mind too: One killed the Australian diver and conservationist Steve Irwin. I am only partially … [Read more...]
Ilulissat means "iceberg" in Greenlandic. And indeed, there are icebergs here. On a cruise that covered a good chunk of the high arctic from Canada to Greenland, this place was the standout -- but not just for the ice. First, however, a comment … [Read more...]
“Look there, in the top of that tree,” our raft guide whispered, pointing to a massive cottonwood tree near the river’s edge. Eight bodies in the raft with me turned and squinted, followed almost immediately by emitting a series of ooohs … [Read more...]
It is daybreak and I have the promenade of Blount Small Ship Adventures’ Grande Mariner to myself. Sometime during the night we’d made our way through Lake St. Clair, passing the big-city lights of Detroit. Now, as we traverse the passage … [Read more...]
