I woke very early this morning and noticed I could see lights showing shore was visible so I went on our balcony and watched for a couple of hours.  Sunrise came and then the bay and we sailed into the harbor.  It was beautiful.  I think I’ll try to be up to watch as we sail into other ports. 

I walked into the city and visited the crafts market where I saw little of interest (some nice hammocks), very loud and crowded for a Vermont girl.  On our bus tour in the afternoon the guide did a reasonable job with the material she had but there really didn’t seem much to see.  Someone told me later that it had a really interesting history so perhaps we could have had a better narrative. Salvador da Bahia was the first capital of Brazil.  It was a center of sugar cane production and, therefore, a major destination for African slaves; thus the city of 2 million or so is 80% black today.  There is much emphasis on African religions, often mixed in with Christianity; each color (ribbon, statue) refers to a different deity—white is Jesus but blue may be the sea goddess or St. Barbara, etc.) When sugar cane lost prominence, the capital was moved to Rio de Janeiro.  The old part of the city has an upper and a lower portion connected by elevators (as well as by roads). The city has lots of empty buildings as they focus on building on the Atlantic side and largely abandoning the bay side.  With unemployment high and much corruption it’s hard to know how they will manage to clean up and rebuild.  They believe in lots of festivals and processions through town however.  They claim their Mardi Gras celebration is bigger than Rio’s though not as well known. –Cynthia

Despite weather forecasts to the contrary, our days have been warm and mostly sunny.  It is now even predicted to continue for our next two ports.

I forgot to mention the interdenominational service Sunday (Jan 13) led by our indefatigable cruise director Heather.  Heather is always in high heels and exceedingly cheerful, but is also an excellent cruise director.  To add minister to her string of duties seemed a bit much, but she even delivered an excellent homily for Jesus’ baptism.  The service was held in the theater and attracted 150-200 passengers; to assist in ambiance the full-size screen across the front showed the interior of a cathedral as if we were in the pews.  Heather said their photographer goes to churches in each port to photograph so we can change cathedrals each Sunday.  She was pretty sure today’s was in Hamilton, Bermuda.  The service itself sounded very Episcopalian though I must admit I don’t know how many denominations use some of the same prayers and translation of the Apostles’ creed.

Last night we dined on deck (outdoors) with a couple, both physicians, from Los Angeles but originally from Poland—a lovely evening. Tonight we are back at the Chef’s Table. — Cynthi

The Chef’s Table,  Viking Sun offers two specialty dining rooms that have limited seating and require advance registration.  One is Manfredi’s which features Italian cuisine, and the other is The Chef’s Table, which as Cynthia described earlier presents a fixed menu and wines paired with each course.  The menu changes every four days or so and features more tasting-sized portions than full course servings.

     It so happens every day we are at sea we play Bridge in the two rooms comprising The Chef’s Table, with instruction and discussion in the morning and two and a half hours of duplicate play each afternoon. Given our usual seating arrangement, I usually face a very large display of still wine that divides the two rooms… and being “Dummy” frequently, my mind wanders.

     Wine is stored in 3 pairs of cabinets arranged back-to-back.  Each cabinet contains five shelves per side and each shelf, save one, is devoted to a single vintage. which if my math is correct, means the cabinets contain 240 bottles of wine, with about an equal mix of red and white/rose wine. According to their labels, the wines come mostly from the US and the EU, with a few shelves devoted to BR, AU and NZ vintages, and were bottled within the past five years. (From a cursory examination, I would guess the wines are relatively inexpensive, with (restaurant) price per bottle ranging from $25 to $60.)   

     The cabinets seem to be illuminated all day long with artificial daylight lighting. The lighting, however, is provided by LEDs, which don’t produce much heat.  All bottles are oriented neck upwards, and all but a couple of shelves contain corked bottles rather than screw-capped ones.  Cabinets containing reds are provided with circulating air maintained at 18 degrees C (or 64 F), while whites and roses are maintained at 9 degree C (or 48 F).   

     But!…musing about the various wines and their possible tastes changing over time provides a nice respite from Dummy Bridge. —Chris

The first of three ‘at sea’ days it rained.  How dare it rain for our cruise!  So we dined indoors all day, played (and learned) bridge, and watched a movie.  The following two days were pleasant and still full of bridge.  One evening we dined at the other specialty restaurant (having dined twice at Manfredi’s the Italian specialty restaurant) called The Chef’s Table.  This is a fixed menu four course (including an ‘amuse bouche’) plus a lovely ‘palate cleanser’ that has a paired wine with each course.  It was very nice and we’ll go again (for a different fixed menu). 

Unfortunately, during the second day we learned that our stop at Recife, Brazil intended for Jan. 14 is cancelled so we will actually have 5 consecutive sea days,  That’s fine, but I’m sorry to miss the port.  It seems we have a ‘mechanical problem’ that means we can’t travel at full speed so we need to cut out a port.  Presumably when we reach Rio, they will get the part or whatever we need to fix the problem.  On the other hand, despite the current sunshine, the weather report for the next two ports (as well as Recife) is for rain.  Not auspicious. –Cynthia

Nordic Dark Humor?  The Viking Cruise Line is noted for its patronage of such middle-brow art as Masterpiece Theater.  Thus, It’s not unusual for the Viking Cruise ships to exhibit works of art.  In the case of Viking Sun (our ship), most of the art is impressionistic in style and featured original lithographs by the Norwegian artist, Edvard Munch (perhaps best known for Panic), as illustrated by the photographs above.  The lithographs are starkly black on either white or sepia paper, and the one of the couple on the right could well be titled Norwegian Gothic, while the other is titled, strangely, On Waves of Love.  Munch is not Gauguin, however, and his art doesn’t seem appropriate for a Cruise in the Southern Hemisphere.  — Chris

The 3 Iles du Salut, which include Ile Royale and Ile du Diable, were used for many years as a French penal colony.  Alfred Dreyfus was imprisoned here for treason for 5 years and then exonerated.  Henry Charriere was among the few to escape and his story is told in his memoir adapted into a film with Steve McQueen & Dustin Hoffman, both titled Papillon.  A remake of Papillon was made in 2017 starring Rami Malek and a good looking young actor named Charlie Hunnam.  We saw the film on the ship this morning and it’s pretty good.  This afternoon we were tendered ashore to Ile Royale where most of the penal colony was.  It was lovely to walk on a path in the woods—different type of woods from Middlebury’s Chipman Hill, but still.  The map of the trails and buildings seemed to bear little resemblance to the physical reality and the buildings had no signs so it wasn’t otherwise a really memorable stop. There were capuchin monkies and some nice flowers.   One of the buildings is now a small hotel; I can’t imagine who stays there, and staff are primarily ferried to and from the mainland.  From the top I could see Devil’s Island and I saw no evidence of the high cliffs featured in the movie.  Chris chose to stay on the ship—a good choice given the slightly rough sea making it difficult to board the tender and the heat, humidity, and rough trails on land.  We managed also to do our first laundry today; it’s hard to decipher the icons used on the machines but they seem to work fine.

There are 930 guests on board (and 400 plus staff). 450 are going on the full world cruise; 360 disembark in Buenos Aires. I gather we are full for each of the 5 legs but there will be coming and going. 71 of us went on last year’s world cruise and Viking has a 245 day (!) world cruise beginning in August.

Grenada is a pretty volcanic island with lots of hills. The guides expressed thanks to the US for the 1983 invasion; I was surprised. Our excursion was simply a bus ride around the area with a stop for rum punch. Others did snorkeling around the underwater sculpture garden, which is gradually turning into a coral reef, or a tour of a rum distillery.

Sailing through the Caribbean, we had our first real bridge lesson (opening leads to a no trump contract) and played duplicate in the afternoon. To our amazement, we actually won the duplicate (7 tables I think)–amazing because we had our communication problems and, in one hand, went down 3 doubled. (Apologies to readers who are not bridge players). We had a port talk about Grenada–our stop tomorrow–and in the evening went back to Manfredi’s, the Italian restaurant we ate at on Jan 4 for my birthday. We had a waiter, Andre, from Indonesia we especially liked and asked to be seated in his section again. That put us in a cozy area of 3 tables for two. The woman next to me was there for her birthday as well (which brought a special cake with an electric candle) and she asked for 6 plates so all of us shared her cake. Very pleasant evening.

Our San Juan excursion was to El Yunque National Rain Forest. Being a ‘National’ Forest means anyone working for the forest is working without pay due to the government shutdown. Also today is Epiphany or the 12th day of Christmas, a holiday in Puerto Rico so much, including parts of El Yunque are closed. We drove into the rain forest and saw some pretty waterfalls and flowers but, on the whole, the trip was disappointing. Returning to the ship, however, we enjoyed a proper afternoon tea complete with scones and small sandwiches and cakes. To our delight our resident strings duo performed during tea as well. And then the ship departed. I really love watching us sail out of the harbor in the evening with the darkening sky and all the lights, preferably from our balcony with the wind in my face.

We passed very close to the Dominican Republic today but it’s not a port of call.  Too windy to be walking the circuit around the ship as I did yesterday.   Mostly we had a quiet day today—did some reading, some exercise, attended a lecture.  The lecturer was by a man involved with Sea Watch, which studies migratory patterns of various sea animals, mostly dolphins and whales.  He encouraged people to watch on their own or with him and to report any sightings to add to the repository of information. After dinner we sat in the “Viking living room” (an atrium with two floors of wrap around balconies or mezzanines) and listened to the resident violinist and cellist followed by the pianist. Very pleasant.