Every ship has an atrium. It’s in the middle of the ship and is 3 floors tall or more. I try to capture the feeling of them but pictures just aren’t doing it. A lot of the other pictures aren’t capturing the moment either. There seems to be something wrong with all the pictures I take of incridible things I am seeing.

“What’s wrong with these pictures?”

These are pale facsimiles of the real thing.  The camera doesn’t cover 10% of the view so it’s like looking through a straw. You have two eyes and the camera has only one lense. You have 3d vision plus a 4th – movement through time. And maybe the most important of all is a camera and display can only show you a few million colors. The color depth of your eyes exceeds that by a LOT. No picture has ever taken my breath away like what I’ve seen with my own eyes.

“That’s what they say. There is nothing like seeing it with your own TWO eyes. And with your eyesight, you see 2x of everything! That’s like 4x for you!”

That is a real benefit I don’t appreciate enough. The separation is so big now the blurriness is almost gone. It’s like looking at 3d images without the glasses. 

“Those optometrists are just out for themselves.”

You also can’t smell the ocean air or feel the breeze on your skin or hairs. It’s tropical every day! Even when the ocean is calm, there is still a fresh breeze because we are moving along about 20 knots – 19 mph. If you go to the outside deck on 7 you can feel the ocean spray from the ship’s wake.  No picture can capture that feeling.

Gorgeous pink, purple, and yellow light rays shine through just like the picture shows. You can see these bands of light and dark streaks. The picture just can’t capture it. Add the cleanest ocean air you can imagine and you know the picture just can’t do it.

The streaky bands of light aren’t a trick of the camera. The reflections from the ocean are more vivid than I can describe.

The cotton candy sky is pale and lifeless in the picture compared to the real thing. I can almost taste the tropical fruit colors as I stand here in it.

I don’t know if this is a sunset or sunrise. I lose track of them but I never take them for granted because there might be a day I don’t see another quite as nice.

We pull into Suva, Fiji and it is yet another beautiful tropical island. 

“That’s what it looks like.”

Pictures just don’t quite do it. This view is in three directions. If you like green mountains then this trip has them!

This picture doesn’t quite do it either. There’s a story here.

“These stories are as old as the siren of the sea.”

I know this one.

“The Sirens were dangerous creatures of the sea in Greek mythology. They inhabited a rocky island called Anthemoessa, which translates to the “flowery island.” They lured passing ships and sailors to their doom. When a ship approached their island, the Sirens would begin to sing. Their voices were so beautiful that no one could resist them. Sailors who fell under their spell would ultimately meet a tragic fate.”

That sounds like a warning.

“This already happened.”

So it can’t be a warning?

These pictures don’t do much either. Eating has become quite a different thing. Like the pictures of the sky, these pictures of the food can’t capture the experience of it day after day.

Any of these things by themselves don’t seem like much. But consider that they are all available all the time. You don’t have to order anything or decide on one or the other. Having to choose and wait for food just isn’t part of life anymore unless you want to do that.

“There are many ways to eat on the ship. That doesn’t come accross with a single picture.”

This is just the buffet, food on demand. Never having to cook. Never cleaning up after meals. Imagine that is your every day. What picture conveys that experience?

This is where we disembark. It’s a long ways from Los Angeles and this is definitely the way I want to travel long distances like that. It’s been fabulous! The Island Princess will continue but we are exploring this world. It’s a new world. It doesn’t look anything like the world we came from. Our map has a clear view of Antarctica. We really are ‘down under’.

It’s a new world. Even if there are signs of an old world, it’s all new to me.

And in this world…

“I bet there’s a Hilton.”

We are leaving this world! Right now.

“We are flying to Sydney today. We will come back to New Zealand in a few weeks.”

Chinese? This is New Zealand. I’ve never expected this. Is Chinese an official language here?

“Maybe all international terminals do this now. How would we know? It’s been a while since we’ve been in the International terminal.”

It has been a while.

I know her! We used to be inseperable. We would go everywhere together.

“Everywhere meaning Las Vegas and the Hawaiian Islands.”

Right! I loved her and we did everything together.

“Then Covid.. so sad. We just fell apart after that.”

Another world, again!

It’s yesterday now where we came from. Not only are we in another world, we are in another time. We’ve stepped into the future. Future World.

“I bet there are going to be robots!”

But first we will spend a week in Sydney. We have a sim card so our tech is going to work the way it is supposed to. We get a new phone number each time we swap sim identity.

“We talk to people on apps though. Mostly. And we have a software phone that works on IP.”

You still need cellular for many services besides data. Get used to it.