SOME CLOSING STATISTICS/NOTES/THOUGHTS

We had an interesting experience as we left Eurodam and headed for the San Diego airport.  Another passenger had taken one of my bags and left his behind.  We knew this because it was just me and his bag left in the cavernous building where everyone goes to claim their bags.  My bag was on the wrong bus going to the wrong place at the airport.  It all worked out in the end and Holland America reunited me with my bag at the airport and I was able to check it in and it even made it back here to Las Vegas with all the others.  Other than that our departure was orderly and well organized.  Our flight was on time and Jim was there to pick us up.  He even had dinner ready to go after we got back here to the house.

So, this brings the journal of our trip to an end but I thought I would share a few statistics with you to close.

• Our average speed for the entire trip was 14.8 knots.
• We traveled 8562 nautical miles which = roughly 9,850 statute miles.
• The ship used 699,000 gallons of fuel.
• (That works out to 70.9 gallons per mile. GPM vs MPG)
• Eurodam's crew of 834 was made up of 44 nationalities.
• Eggs consumed = 144,000
• Arlyene and I are now members of the ORDER OF THE PURPLE PORPOISE and GOLDEN SHELLBACKs.

This was a wonderful trip and everything we had hoped it would be.  Definitely a bucket list thing for me.  I highly recommend Holland America Lines, they did a superb job.

As I have said in the past, I journal these things on our blog largely for my own enjoyment and for the joy I get reliving some of our trips by going back and reading previous postings and looking at the photos.  I have also enjoyed sharing these postings with you and hope you found them interesting.

Viva La Verve !  

FRIDAY - LAST SEA DAY

Today, Friday,  is our last sea day.  By around 10 am tomorrow we will be off the ship and on our way to the airport.  Eurodam and her crew will be taking on a new set of passengers almost as we leave then heading for Hawaii.  "Been there, done that, got the t-shirt".

Our photos are of a pod of purposes that were feeding on the surface not too far from the ship.  Later we passed Guadalupe Island, off the coast of Baja.  It is a volcanic island with some sea elephants, some goats and a few fisher people.  Hey, it was something to look at other than water.

Since breakfast we have been packing and coughing so now you know why I was excited to get on deck and take some pictures of a barren island.

Tonight is the farewell dinner.  Once we get our packing finished and our bags out in the passage way we will probably not see each other until we all get back to Las Vegas.  Mike, Kimberly, Sandy and Ken all get off in the first wave and they are taking their own bags off after which they will get their car and drive back.  Arlyene and I are flying but our plane does not leave until late afternoon so the others are likely to get home before we do.

It has been a great trip and we all had a great time and we are all still getting along - actually having fun.  But it had to end sometime, we all have places to be and things to do so we better just get on with it.

CLOSING ON SAN DIEGO

We are enjoying probably the smoothest ride of the entire trip.  The seas are very flat, about as close to glass like as the Pacific probably ever gets.  There is almost no perceptible roll or pitch.  Last night I woke up wondering if the ship had stopped.  The temperatures and humidity have moderated as well.

Tonight is our last dress up night and the photographers will be out in force.  Hopefully we can get a nice group photo we all like.  Tomorrow is our last full day at sea.  We arrive early Saturday morning in San Diego and  should be off the ship by 9:30 or 10:00.  The amazing thing is that they will refuel, re-provision, take on a whole new group of passengers, and leave again about 5 pm headed for another round trip to Hawaii before going north to do Alaska cruises.

POSITION REPORT

We continue to chug along on a heading of 28 degrees and a speed of 19 knots headed for San Diego in a straight line.  I was able to find our actual Latitude and Longitude and plot our location on this Google Map.

Looks like we are just a little closer than Hawaii which agrees with the number of days we have left.  In the process of finding our location - which is not provided to us here on the ship with any great detail, I also ran across a service that tracks all kinds of ships.  The map above looks kind of lonely but when you see what else is out here that changes.

You should be able to click on this to enlarge it.  Eurodam is the small blue ship bottom center.  On this entire voyage we have only seen one other ship when we are out on these sea days.  Day after day with nothing on the horizon.  Clearly there is more going on out there then we can see and we are not nearly as close together as this screen shot would suggest.