And on to Wisconsin’s charming Door County
Published by Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer
By David G. Molyneaux | TheTravelMavens.com
LUDINGTON, Michigan – May brings the return of travelers, lining up their vehicles at Ludington’s Lake Michigan docks to board the famed S.S. Badger. The ferry is a National Historic Landmark, as well as an enjoyable ride across the lake toward summer vacation destinations in Wisconsin above Milwaukee: to Door County, and all points west.
For Ohioans, the ferry between Ludington and Manitowoc, Wisconsin, is an alternative to the laborious multi-lane highways to Milwaukee, including the traffic crawl through Chicago. From Cleveland, the total drive to Manitowoc, north of Milwaukee, usually is at least eight hours. Charming beach vacation towns in Door County are another two hours north.
Riding the Badger is not really a timely shortcut — the 400-mile drive from Cleveland to Ludington is about six hours and the ferry ride another four hours. The choice is less about time and more about the fun that includes a break from the tedious concrete.
Besides, nearly everybody likes a boat ride. The 410-foot-long Badger, launched in 1953 to haul rail cars across Lake Michigan, is designed for all weather. You may sit outside gazing at the lake, inside near the windows or find a quiet spot to curl up in a chair for a snooze, perhaps play a rousing game of cards, while the captain does all the work to get you and your vehicle to Wisconsin.
The ship, purchased by Cleveland’s Interlake Holding Co. in late 2020, has two dining areas, 40 staterooms for privacy (at an extra fee), two lounges, a children’s playroom, a gift shop, and two TV gathering spots, one free, the other for a fee.
Starting May 12, the Badger cruises daily. With up to 600 passengers, their motorcycles and bicycles, and about 180 cars, RVs, tour buses and commercial trucks, the Badger chugs out of Ludington each morning at 9 a.m., leaving Manitowoc each afternoon at 2 p.m. (Central time).
In the height of summer vacation traffic — June 10 to Sept. 5 — the Badger makes its run twice a day. The second sailing leaves Ludington at 8:45 p.m., and Manitowoc at 1:30 a.m. Some Ohioans say they time their ferry voyage at night at the beginning or end of a vacation. Fares for adult passengers start at $61 in spring, $111 round trip, with discounts for children, seniors and college students. Cars are $78.
Reservations are recommended at least two weeks in advance if you’re taking a car. Information: ssbadger.com or 1-800-841-4243.
The lure of Door County
Last October, just as the ferry season was ending (will be Oct. 16 in 2022), I drove from Cleveland through Chicago to Milwaukee. On the way home, I chose the ferry to Ludington, arriving in Michigan in the waning hours of sunshine, then drove for about 90 minutes to Grand Rapids to stay overnight, returning to Cleveland the next day through Toledo and Ohio 2.
My intention for the next trip to Wisconsin is to take the ferry both ways. I also plan to spend more time in Door County, which lies on a peninsula above Milwaukee. Green Bay (the body of water) sits on the west side of Door County, Lake Michigan on the east. The peninsula is a summer beach home and weekly vacation rental for lots of folks from Chicago and Milwaukee.
My time on the Peninsula was short but rewarding, the sort of thing that happens sometimes when a business trip ends early, and suddenly you’ve got a choice: head home or spend a couple of carefree days exploring new territory. I had read positive reviews of Door County. I was told at the annual conference of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) #satwMKE, meeting in Milwaukee, that even if I spent only a day or two in the towns and parks along the shore, my visit to Door County would be worthwhile. And it was.
Nooks, beaches, and two-lane roads
The winding roads in the woodsy peninsula are a joy to drive above the city of Sturgeon Bay, where I stopped at the Destination Door County Welcome Center for brochures and tips. The lobby, at 1015 Green Bay Road, always is open with free Wi-Fi, brochures, and a machine for putting air in your bicycle tires (see doorcounty.com or 920-743-4456).
The 188-page Door County destination guide held most of the answers I needed, but the best tip for me was the Door County National Scenic Byway, which the county put together for a seven-day bicycle tour.
I drove my car on the route in a day and half, starting on the Lake Michigan side, stopping for a walk at Baileys Harbor, which is surrounded by wetlands, and another for a view of the lighthouse at Cana Island. At the most northern part of the peninsula, where a small ferry takes vacationers the 20 minutes to popular Washington Island, I gazed across the strait known as Death’s Door, where Green Bay and Lake Michigan meet and many a cargo ship met its demise.
I spent the rest of my time on the Green Bay side of the peninsula, stopping at Ellison Bay, Sister Bay, Ephraim, Fish Creek and Egg Harbor.
From Ephraim, you can see panoramic views of Peninsula State Park’s Eagle Bluff. The city offers tours of historic sites (in summer, a trolley tour is a 90-minute ride). Starting in mid-May, Ephraim opens the Old Post Office Restaurant for a local culinary mainstay called the Door County fish boil. Boilers use Lake Michigan whitefish, adding potatoes and onion served with melted butter, lemon wedges, coleslaw or salad, and bread, with a slice of Door County cherry pie.
Peninsula State Park is a wonder, 3,776 acres with eight miles of Green Bay shoreline (wiparks.net). A local expert recommended bike rentals at Edge of Parks Rentals to get out on the scenic roads and dedicated bike trails. You also can kayak or paddleboard along the bluffs or rent a pontoon boat and spend the day on the water (see doorcountyadventurerafting.com). For a serious hike, locals recommend the Sunset Trail, a 9.6-mile park overview that starts near Fish Creek, just south of Peninsula State Park.
Fish Creek is an artsy, walkable town with galleries and local artwork to buy, well worth a stop for a few hours.
In Egg Harbor, eventually I found a place to sleep for the night at a roadside motel called the Lull-Abi Inn (at the off-season rate of $139). I was fortunate.
Lesson one:
Don’t come to the heart of Door County without a reservation. Most visitors book early and stay for a weekend, a week or more, and most of the accommodations north of Sturgeon Bay are relatively expensive, as are most of the restaurants — if you can get in. Even in October, I did not find an available restaurant reservation, though I did locate a restaurant in Egg Harbor that would make me a takeout pizza.
Lesson two:
If you are looking for outdoor recreation such as adventure rafting, hiking, fishing, sticking your boat in the water, or just looking at the lake, don’t let a lack of accommodations or restaurant seats deter you from visiting Door County above Sturgeon Bay. Make it a day trip. Come back to Sturgeon Bay and head north again tomorrow. This county has two dozen parks and lots of activities, but it is small: 25 miles from full-service Sturgeon Bay to Fish Creek, another 20 to the top of the county at Gills Rock.
Lesson three:
Bring heavy snack food. Put enough in the ice chest in your trunk for a full day. Nowhere in any of the lakeside towns above Sturgeon Bay, or on the roads between the towns, did I see a roadside sign for fast-food or much of anything else for lunch — not a quick burger, not a taco, not a pizza, not an ice cream.
Charm has its price.
David Molyneaux is editor of TheTravelMavens.com and writer of TravelMavenBlog.com
As travelers, we waltzed in, after the wildlife had endured arduous, dangerous migrations to breed, feed, molt, and play. They performed their basic stages of survival in a dramatic, awesome theater of nature
By David G. Molyneaux
Turret Point, King George Island, Antarctica
At the bottom of the earth, as the summer temperature reached a balmy mid-30s, I encountered a penguin on a mission. Each of us was walking alone on a remote beach where our paths soon would intersect — the traveler overstuffed into a red polar jacket, the black and white penguin, Adèlie in species, looking sleek and dapper.
Water’s edge was to my left. The penguin, ahead of me and to my right, was shuffling steadily toward the sea. Until, simultaneously, we stopped our progress. Did the penguin judge intentions? No question who would give way.
Before our wet landing on Zodiac inflatable boats from our cruise ship, expedition guides had explained that our role was to give the wildlife space, so as not to cause them to alter their natural behavior. Besides, penguin patience is far greater than that of humans.
Following protocol, the human retreated about two paces. Which apparently was sufficient. The penguin resumed its deliberate waddle to the water, hopped into the sea, and swam away in a series of penguinesque breaststrokes graceful beyond imagination, a style that guides call “porpoising.”
“See you later,” I said, smiling at the crazy thought of recognizing this penguin again. From a distance, they look pretty much the same. And their numbers, in and around Antarctica, were astonishing.
Though the long journey to my seventh continent — a total of 20 days round trip from home in Ohio — was aimed primarily at observing penguins, I had no expectation that my eyes would feast on at least half a million of them. Nor that I would feel an intimate connection, even for a moment, between a pampered vacation traveler and a single creature in the wild on a life-sustaining mission to feed.
That exhilarating experience was a highlight of a trip that unfolded swimmingly in January (2022), operated by venerable luxury expedition leader Abercrombie & Kent (A&K).
My fellow travelers and I explored amazingly close to species of seals, penguins, and seabirds on South Georgia Island and in icy waters and landings on the White Continent.
Our team of travelers
An expedition team of 18 — experts in history, nature, geology, marine biology, ornithology, and photography — lectured and guided us, demonstrating daily and hourly flexibility to change exploration Plan A to Plan B whenever weather intervened.
Our small ship, Le Lyrial, chartered by A&K from the fleet of the cruise line Ponant, was comfortable and capable, especially in its French kitchen. Le Lyrial’s passenger capacity is 234, but when A&K charters the ship, as the company did four times this Antarctic summer, passengers are limited to 199.
Our cruise was at 104 passengers.
The crew and tour operator’s staff followed protocols that provided calm from Covid-19 concerns, even as one passenger tested positive and was quarantined together with her husband early in the cruise, and after an increasing number of crew tested positive later in the voyage (when 40 crew members including close contacts were quarantined). We all masked inside throughout the trip. My wife and I and our fellow travelers were tested, tested, and tested again, from the moment we arrived in Buenos Aires where we spent the first two nights at a hotel, to the end of our cruise. All negative.
For seven days we were at sea in the vast Southern Ocean, our ship joined by giant petrels in the wind behind us and southern royal albatrosses soaring in the distance.
We cruised for three days to cover the 1,200 miles from our embarkation point of Ushuaia, Argentina, to South Georgia Island; two days of about 1,000 miles to the Antarctic Peninsula; and nearly two days the 600 miles back to Ushuaia across the Drake Passage, infamous for its rocky seas but which treated us kindly.
These sea days were for expedition preparation, lectures, and relaxation for which we were grateful later in the voyage as a break from exploring the remote shores — trudging over thousands of rounded rocks on beaches, hillside scree, and uneven grounds to reach breeding spots. Even in the Antarctic summer, sometimes the weather adds an element of discomfort, especially the winds.
Marine biologist Rich Pagen prepared us for what we would see: penguins protecting their unborn and molting away their brown winter fur; enormous elephant seals with their harems on the beaches; seabirds swooping to steal eggs that would have produced penguins; and leopard seals that change their diet from sea krill to penguins in the autumn.
Seven days we explored among wildlife in the food chain.
Typically, we made two outings each day for about two hours each, using the ship’s Zodiacs to get ashore or catch close-up views along the shoreline. We never spotted another traveler. Access to beaches in the Antarctic region often is restricted to 100 people at a time. A&K organized us into four groups to board Zodiacs, 6 to 8 passengers each for wet landings (meaning your boots will enter the water, as docks do not exist). Passengers soon became proficient at the sit-twist-and-sliding technique for entering and exiting the inflatable boats.
You might think from travel brochures that South Georgia Island is just an extra stop on the way to the continent of Antarctica. Instead, it provided my biggest wow moments of the trip, from the abundance of wildlife to close encounters with creatures that usually paid us no attention — except for some ornery fur seals with bared teeth.
Remote, inhospitable South Georgia is more than 100 miles long, 20 miles wide, yet not a single human lives as a resident and only a couple dozen researchers hang out. The island is covered in ice and snow for most of the year. Terrain is steep and rocky, vegetation in summer is limited to grasses and mosses — perfect for hundreds of thousands of penguins and seals feeding and breeding. Lately, the island is again drawing millions of seabirds now that rats, once introduced by visiting whalers and other ships, have been eradicated.
Scrub those boots in the Guanomatic
Don’t bring anything ashore, we were warned, as we daily washed our boots in Virkon and used the Guanomatic. We cleaned our clothing including the velcro and our pockets. We would double-scrub and double-dip before we went ashore in Antarctica — all essential parts of the concerted efforts that the human world now makes to protect and preserve the wonders of this region.
At South Georgia’s Fortuna Bay, King penguins as tall as 38 inches welcomed us, parading toward the beach in a line as if they were cued on stage. Seal pups played by the water.
At a penguin colony, a King quartet performed, trumpeting. Elephant seals lay piled together in the seagrass, sneezing and snorting to alert us to their presence.
At Grytviken, the first whaling station in Antarctic waters, we visited the cemetery that holds the body of famed explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton.
He remains a hero here, in Ireland where he was born, and in England.
While sailing toward the South Pole, his ship Endurance was crushed by fast-forming ice, and it sunk, stranding 28 men on the ice during the Antarctic winter of 1915.
When the ice began to melt, the crew used lifeboats to reach uninhabited Elephant Island.
Shackleton and five others made an 800-mile open-boat journey to reach Grytviken and mount a rescue of the men waiting on Elephant Island, bringing them home without a loss of life.
Check out the movie, The Endurance.
This is how the ship looked before it was consumed by the ice. A team of adventurers, marine archaeologists and technicians located the wreck at the bottom of the Weddell Sea, east of the Antarctic Peninsula, using undersea drones, they announced in March 2022.
As part of our cruise, we later sailed within view of bleak and rugged Elephant Island, which we were told was a rare treat.
"He bit my boot"
After rain, snow, and strong winds, Le Lyrial’s captain found calm at Moltke Harbor where a Gentoo penguin rookery sat just over a hill, and guides sighted a snowy sheathbill and numerous South Georgia pipits. Seals were lounging about.
While waiting offshore in a Zodiac, guide Russ Manning reported his first bite from a fur seal in 32 years of expeditions.
“It jumped into my boat, bit me in the boot and then jumped back out,” said Manning. “Just another day at the office.”
His assumption was that the seal may have exhibited the odd behavior because it was fleeing a hungry orca.
At St. Andrews Bay, one of world’s largest gatherings of penguins stood on the beaches, up the hills, and along the rivers that flowed from two glaciers. A guide estimated their number at about 300,000, including 100,000 breeding couples, each with one chick.
On Zodiacs, we cruised the cacophonous colony on St. Andrews Bay, the sounds explained by our guide: chicks letting out high-pitched whistles as begging calls to their parents, adults trumpeting in courtship displays with potential mates, and skuas dramatically circling the colony in search of an opportunity to grab an egg or a chick. What a sight — and smell!
At Gold Harbor we dodged a huge pile of young elephant seals, snorting loudly and sparring with one another. A King penguin colony huddled down the beach. Northern giant petrels stalked their prey.
At Cooper Bay, Macaroni penguins porpoised in the waters and hung around the rocks that were fringed with kelp that resembled fettuccine, the strands sliding and dipping with the ocean swells like pasta on a wet plate.
Sailing toward the Antarctic Sound, we sighted whales — finback, humpback, and orcas — and crossed the Antarctic Circle at a latitude of about 66 degrees, cruising as far south as 64 degrees 09.480 minutes, reported the captain.
Hike to the Rim
At Penguin Island we spotted our first colony of Chinstrap penguins — their faces have a narrow black band from under their beak to their head — and most of us climbed at least several hundred feet toward the rim of Deacon Peak (560 feet at its highest point) to see the crater of an extinct volcano.
At Turret Point on King George Island, southern elephant seals waded ashore for their annual molt, and I met the Adélie penguin who made my day.
We anchored off Brown Bluff, for our first step on the mainland of Antarctica. The bluff, a rock formation capped by volcanic ash and cinders, is the backdrop for a large colony of Adélie and Gentoo penguins. Chicks were gathered in crèches to hide from predators, as they awaited the return of their parents who were feeding at sea.
On our last day before returning to Argentina we paused to watch spectacular glacial calvings with booms that echoed across the water at Mikkelsen Harbor.
In Cierva Cove, we cruised Zodiacs among massive tabular icebergs, spotting slumbering Weddell seals and what appeared to our guide to be a leopard seal, a dangerous creature for its hunger of penguins.
The seal paid no attention to us, but I didn’t notice any penguins swimming nearby.
Readying for a trip below the Antarctic Circle
Travel to Antarctica is neither easy, nor inexpensive, $10,000-$20,000 per person or more, depending on the length and luxury level.
Like most other touring expeditions into the wild, Antarctica will include physical activity and require some mobility; daily preparation of equipment for excursions; early morning wakeups; and a level of paying attention to procedures. For entertainment onboard, count on lectures and documentaries about nature and its creatures. As A&K’s Antarctic expedition leader Marco Favero said with a chuckle: “This is not a vacation. It is an expedition. You need to follow directions.” No one complained, which was not a surprise as most passengers were expedition veterans. Many had booked their trips as much as two years ahead.
Preparation: In addition to all the paperwork about medical insurance, flying into Argentina, and whatever pandemic protocols are in force, packing is more important for cold weather clothing, worn in layers, than anything dressy at dinner. A&K makes packing easier by providing, at the ship, a polar jacket, backpack, boots, and waterproof pants; you take home the backpack and jacket, the latter of which I recommend you get laundered on the ship so you don’t bring home the Antarctic odor of guano.
Getting there: Long flights from North America, at least 9 or 10 hours to Buenos Aires from such airports as Dallas and Atlanta, followed the next day by a three-hour flight (in our case a charter) to the port at Ushuaia, Argentina, to board a cruise ship for days of sailing to the White Continent. The bottom of the earth is a long way to go.
Daily exploring: For temperatures in the 30s in January (the best travel month), we dressed in three layers, typically long-underwear, a warm shirt and pants, and the polar jacket, plus a fleece sweatshirt or windbreaker in the backpack for the late afternoons or on boat rides. Each re-boarding of the ship, returning from a Zodiac wet landing ashore, we cleaned and scrubbed our boots on deck to clear them of dirt as well as the ever-present guano from wildlife. Each evening passengers would gather for a briefing about the next day. Each morning, we would start the process again.
For me, all the efforts to visit Antarctica were appropriate — from the long journey to the serious process of preparing ourselves to arrive clean and respectfully at a place belonging to the wildlife. As travelers, we waltzed in, after they had endured arduous, dangerous migrations to breed, feed, molt, and play where their basic stages of life survival were performed in a dramatic, awesome theater of nature.
Molyneaux, editor of TheTravelMavens.com and writer for TravelMavenBlog.com, has visited more than 130 countries and sailed on about 150 cruises. This blog was published in the Napa Valley Register, Napa, Calif., The Plain Dealer of Cleveland, Ohio, and Cleveland.com.
Daydreaming of Vikings in 874
By David G. Molyneaux
Akureyri, Iceland
On a cruise to the North Atlantic islands that lie between Europe’s Scandinavia and America’s Newfoundland, your imagination may wander back 1,000 years or more, especially on the island of Fire and Ice.
To picture the Vikings’ first glimpses of tempestuous Iceland in the 9th century, get to sea, which is easier than ever as expedition vessels and comfy cruise ships are adding remote port stops to their itineraries.
Cruising Iceland’s waters not only offers visits to isolated fishing villages and daunting landscape, but also a sense of historic perspective of the wanderlust of the rugged Vikings who were a fitting match for this island.
Just South of the Arctic Circle
Much of the Iceland coastline has an angry, forbidding look. Huge swaths of cold purplish-brown lava are the result of eruptions from as many as 200 volcanoes. In March 2021, the Fagradalsfjall volcano erupted after lying dormant for 800 years, and months later still was spewing lava and expanding its flow. Snow-covered, jagged mountain peaks form a backdrop. Huge Vatnajokull, one of the largest glaciers in the world, creeps toward the sea to the south.
Viking Ocean Cruises did a series of Iceland circumnavigations this year. On a one-week cruise aboard Viking Sky in July 2021 I could not clear my mind of the daunting welcome mat that nature has laid down. If you had arrived at the southeast coast centuries ago by small boat from Norway — water, food, and patience running low — consider your attitude: I sailed all these days for this?
And yet, discovery of Iceland — inevitable given its position and the curiosity of Scandinavian seafarers — turned out to be a triumph: The island is home to great fishing grounds and enough raw power on land, from water runoff and shooting geysers, to provide some of the cheapest electricity in the world to residents who live under what some experts consider today to be the oldest democracy on the planet.
Iceland, which is about the size of the state of Ohio, is situated on a curving group of islands often called steppingstones across the North Atlantic — east to west the Shetlands, the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland.
Norse books say that Viking explorers settled Iceland about 874. Iceland’s Leif Erikson, son of the confrontational Erik the Red who founded the first Norse settlement in neighboring Greenland, is believed to have landed in North America nearly 500 years ahead of Christopher Columbus. Excavations in Newfoundland, Canada, have revealed remains of a Norse settlement occupied about the year 1000, supporting claims that Erikson and his followers — or perhaps other Vikings — were the first Europeans to “discover” North America; apparently, this is the land they called Vinland.
'Hot' Vacation Choice
These days, discovery is ticking upward in the opposite direction, some no doubt due to travelers’ curiosity about human DNA research that runs deeper and deeper into our pasts. Stories of Vikings from Scandinavia, the British Isles, and Iceland grow ever more popular. They drew a significant audience 2013-2020 to the television series, Vikings, which began on the History channel.
Though the central interior of Iceland is largely uninhabitable, fascinating flatlands in and around fjords and rivers attract visitors to soak in steaming hot springs, to walk mudflats bubbling from gases beneath the Earth’s crust, and to straddle the European and North American tectonic plates that grind apart and tremble across the island (at one accessible spot you may stand, legs spread, touching both plates).
You may also notice sites filmed for the popular TV series Game of Thrones.
Island tours will take you to wild and lush lowlands surrounded by rugged mountains. Spas await to relieve tension. Fairy Tales and folklore about beasts and elves will captivate. Adventure tours will take you deeper and higher. Campers may see the northern lights.
Add the Reykjavik art scene and city restaurants that cook the local catch, and you have reasons for Iceland’s rise as a vacation getaway. (And don’t be concerned that you can’t pronounce any of their towns or natural phenomena; Icelanders won’t pay any adverse attention.)
To See Iceland from the Sea, Pick a Cruise
In 2022, numerous cruise lines are scheduled to call on Iceland, among them Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, MSC, Princess, Celebrity, Regent, Holland America, Carnival, Cunard, Windstar, Oceania, Seabourn, Azamara, Crystal, Siversea, and Viking Ocean.
Viking Ocean chose Iceland as a destination to restart its cruises this summer after more than a year of resting during the early days of the pandemic (other Viking restarts were in Bermuda and Malta).
My Viking Sky itinerary from Reykjavik was to circle the island clockwise, stopping at five ports before returning to Reykjavik: fishing villages Isafjordur in the northwest and Akureyri, a college town only 62 miles from the arctic circle; Seydisfjordur, one of the earliest Viking settlements; Djupivogur, population about 300 and gateway to Vatnajokull, the biggest glacier; and the volcanic island of Heimaey, summer home to millions of puffins and other species who migrate to feed and breed.
In July, a successful cruise seemed reasonable, given the high vaccination rate in Iceland and preparations that Viking Ocean Cruises had taken, including the expense of building a full-scale laboratory on each of its cruise ships to test daily for Covid among the fully vaccinated and previously tested crew and passengers. Onboard, 760 passengers (with extra space on a 930-passenger ship) were fully connected with the ship’s medical crew. We filled out daily health questionnaires; had our temperatures checked at the entrance to breakfast; and carried a contact tracing medallion while on ship and ashore.
Unique to the cruising industry, we began each day with a substantial spit — 2 milliliters, which is about half a teaspoon of saliva aimed directly into a test tube marked with name and barcode. A knock would come to our cabin door at 8:30 a.m. — no sleeping late during summer in the far north — to collect our oral specimens. I heard few passengers complain about producing this juicy spit, which was required to be collected before brushing teeth or drinking coffee, not that any of the passengers said they awoke salivating over the prospect.
Early Cruises Require Flexibility by Passengers
Turned out that most of this summer’s restart cruises on Viking vessels went well. Ours? Outstanding ship and great seafood, as expected, but we missed about half the port stops, which were canceled because of ship protocols concerning the virus and concerned local officials.
We had kayaked in the bay at Isafjordur and spent a delightful day on a van tour (we booked privately) from Akureyri into the countryside of waterfalls, lava rock formations, and bubbling fumaroles of hot steam and gas (as well as a welcome homemade ice cream stand nearby to help return our mouths to a normal taste).
Alas, we were shut down at the port stop in picturesque Seydisfjordur when a passenger’s positive test set in motion the ship’s protocols for such an event: the passenger was placed in quarantine, and her contact tracer used to find and test additional passengers (who turned out to be negative). Authorities on land and the Iceland Coast Guard were notified; they requested that tour buses taking guests into the mountains to learn about elves be called back to Seydisfjordur.
At our next stop, tiny Djupivogur, population about 300, Viking Sky docked and excursion tours began, but the Coast Guard two hours later ordered the ship to head back to sea, skipping our last port stop the next day, and returning to Reykjavik.
When the Djupivogur decision was made, my wife and I were on a bus nearly two hours out of town, headed for a glacier adventure. With Vatnajokull deep in the distance, viewable though shrouded by mist, our bus turned around and headed back to the ship.
Viking Cruises emailed passengers that they would receive refunds for the unfulfilled shore excursions and be compensated with a 50% credit on their next cruise — probably in a different part of the world.
Though circumnavigating Iceland was a popular itinerary in 2021, ship itineraries already were set for 2022 (including four Iceland’s Majestic Landscapes cruises that are sold out). For more information, contact a travel agent specializing in cruises or VikingCruises.com. If you want to see Iceland from the sea during the next few years, you may need to book early.
Molyneaux, editor of TheTravelMavens.com, is a freelance writer who has visited more than 130 countries and sailed on about 150 cruises. This blog was published in the Napa Valley Register, Napa, Calif.
By David G. Molyneaux
St. Martin, Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean
For the first time in more than 15 months, vacationers from North America began boarding in June 2021 a small selection of cruise ships that had been activated from their slumber during the pandemic.
Among them was the 312-passenger Star Breeze that glided out of the harbor at Philipsburg, St. Maarten, bound for … maybe St. Bart’s, said the captain, maybe not.
Even the captain did not know where we were going. After all these months, Covid-19 remained the phantom captain, the rascal behind the wheel. When would the old reality return? When would the virus release its watch?
Turned out that the answer was: No time soon. Our expected one-week itinerary changed nearly every day, and passengers were confined to a vacation bubble in a pandemic costume party that included masks, social distancing, and friendly yet serious enforcement. Our experience, while delightfully relaxing and comfortable aboard a spiffy ship recently enlarged and renewed, sometimes was not the carefree voyage that cruisers normally expect.
For me, the tradeoff of occasional annoyances for a return to sea was fully acceptable, but travelers who are planning to cruise or to join any other group vacations this summer should be aware that the pandemic has added stress to the experience. Restrictions are expected to improve as the calendar turns toward fall.
In the meantime, be vaccinated and be prepared to be tested and managed; to carry a mask and paperwork of testing evidence; and to be flexible.
Hiccups, we had a few
For my June trip with Windstar Cruises, vaccinations were required, and we were tested for COVID four times, once at home before we were allowed to board a plane for St. Martin. Everyone on the Star Breeze in June was an experienced traveler, aware that our cruise would have its hiccups.
We cruised, occasionally, during the next six days, for a total of 420 nautical miles (a distance, as the crow flies, between Cleveland and New York), but we never stopped at another island. We did not see St. Bart’s.
The first — and last — voyage of significant distance took us past Monserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, before we turned around and sailed back to the waters near St. Martin, where the ship lowered its aft-end water sports platform (picture below) so passengers could go for a swim.
Thereafter, we breezed in and out of St. Martin’s bays, because no one else would have us — a shame, really. The newly made-over Star Breeze of Windstar Cruises is a vessel that delivers a top service staff, outstanding food, fun with water toys and (usually) isolated beaches for snorkeling and picnics, all aimed at the casual yet demanding small ship crowd.
As the pandemic moves to a close, Caribbean islands will be sending engraved invitations to this ship.
Windstar is one of several cruise lines — all with predominantly North American passenger lists — that decided to start their 2021 season outside the United States to work around confusing pandemic protocols about testing and vaccinations.
Windstar, with all six ships closed to cruisers since March 14, 2020, decided to begin with a ship in St. Martin, another in Greece — and a third soon in Tahiti. Passengers and crew would be fully vaccinated.
Unfortunately, the Star Breeze crew showed up to work at the shipyard in Europe largely unvaccinated, and Windstar was unable to purchase vaccines for the crew, even when the ship arrived in St. Martin, where the government apologized for its inability to help.
A free Cruise for all
As a result, Windstar called each passenger booked for June 19, offering them a free cruise, explaining that most of the crew was not vaccinated but had passed a series of tests and was confined to the ship (in sort of a trusted bubble), some for two months, others for two weeks. A few passengers declined, accepting a refund. The rest, extra masks packed, headed for the Caribbean.
“We decided to sail because we wanted to show off the ship,” said Windstar President Chris Prelog, who was aboard for the entire cruise.
We were a total of 80 passengers, purposely a small group on a ship that holds 312: all fully vaccinated, all tested for COVID at home, all tested again when we arrived at the ship on Friday, again on Tuesday so St. Martin would let us go ashore (for escorted excursions only), and tested at the end of the cruise before our final docking, where we were escorted directly to the airport.
St. Martin doubled down by requiring all passengers to buy island medical insurance for $30. Windstar charged passengers about $150 for two of the COVID tests, but did not charge for the third.
Thoroughly tested — both with swabs in our noses, as well as our patience — we all wore a mask in public areas aboard Star Breeze. We were socially distanced at tables and in gatherings; we stood six feet apart at lifeboat drill. A table for four in the dining rooms became a table for two or three.
Dining chairs, as well as seats in the theater and common gathering spots, were marked with a “don’t sit here” tag to achieve a proper distance. Except for whoever was in your cabin, the seat next to you was tagged.
Despite the pandemic paraphernalia, the cruise was a joyful occasion both for passengers hungry to vacation at sea and for the crew, who returned to work after more than a year of waiting for their jobs to restart.
Of all the places one might choose to ride out a week of the fading COVID blues, the Star Breeze is quite a bubble.
It is the first of three sister ships to leave drydock after an estimated $250 million of makeovers by Windstar Cruises. Windstar ordered the Fincantieri Shipyard in Palermo, Italy, to cut the ship in half and insert 84 feet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEuHPE_cLSI
Outside
The made-over Star Breeze is sleeker than it was in 2013 when Windstar bought three cruise ships from Seabourn (this one called the Seabourn Spirit) to join the line’s trio of masted sailing ships.
An enlarged pool was added to the main sundeck, as well as the Star Grill which operates on the upper sundeck level beneath a shaded tarp. At lunch and dinner the Grill features such smoked barbeque items as my two favorites, a coffee-crusted prime brisket and a bourbon brined turkey breast, both from the cookbook of Steve Raichlen.
Inside
Windstar has added an outstanding new Spanish and Portuguese tapas-style restaurant, Cuadro 44 by Anthony Sasso (ate there twice, would have returned if the cruise were longer); a well-designed, expanded spa; and 50 cabins for 100 passengers.
The ship's 156 cabins have a minimum of 277 square feet, with a walk-in closet and a curtain that can be drawn to separate the sleeping and sitting areas, which is why Windstar Cruises calls each cabin a suite.
The newer cabins — with an improved design from the older cabins, placing the bed next to the window and sitting area closer to the door — raises the ship capacity from 212 to 312, but does not disturb the intimate, small ship feel. Star Breeze is easy for passengers to navigate; like moving around a boutique hotel, nothing seems far away from the stairwell and elevator at mid-ship.
Next to arrive from the shipyard in Italy are the sister ships, Star Legend and Star Pride, both sliced, enlarged, and renewed. Vaccinations will be required of all crew members and passengers. After the June 19-26 cruise, Star Breeze motored directly, without passengers, to San Juan where Windstar had arranged for vaccinations for the remainder of the crew on June 27. Star Breeze cruises scheduled for June 26 and July 3 were canceled. Cruises were to resume July 10 in St. Martin.
The ship sails to Barbados in August, then Aruba and Panama, and to Tahiti in September.
Wearing masks and social distancing
How long will mask-wearing and distancing aboard Windstar ships continue in the Caribbean, Greece, and Tahiti? That is uncertain, said a cruise line spokesperson.
For me, the most awkward mask-wearing moments cruising on Star Breeze were at evening cocktail events, particularly when the ship’s officers were introduced and mingled with passengers. While masked, holding a beverage in one hand, it was difficult but possible to lower my mask briefly with the other hand to take a sip, then replace the mask into position for conversation.
But when tasty nibbles arrived on silver trays and were offered by waiters around the room, the issue was complicated. With drink in one hand, a shrimp and napkin in the other, my mask remained in position. This predicament made conversations short, as I stood awkwardly holding drink and food with no place to enjoy either one. As the saying goes, there is no other hand.
Molyneaux, editor of TheTravelMavens.com, is former travel editor of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. This column was published in The Plain Dealer of Cleveland, Cleveland.com, and the Napa Valley Register.
'I miss connecting with fellow travelers, even simple smiles and nods of recognition ... I miss the kindness of strangers that appears naturally on the road — and from locals I encounter along the way'
By David G. Molyneaux, TheTravelMavens.com, republished from The Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com
Without a building or human in sight, we arrived at a fork on a woodsy trail with no idea where we were going, for which we were grateful.
A serendipitous choice passed through a patch of red and yellow leaves still dangling in November, perhaps just waiting for these two world travelers who were thankful even for the slightest sense of being lost in Berlin.
No, not that Berlin. Germany and all the other countries of the world are off the discovery charts in this self-protective year of 2020. Instead, we were exploring a ridge of trails about an hour’s drive west of Cleveland in Edison Woods MetroPark in Berlin Township, Erie County.
What a lifestyle change this year has been, without travel.
Nearly every week for the past 37 years, the focus of my work and life was travel, the first 24 as travel editor of The Plain Dealer and more recently as a freelance writer. When I wasn’t writing about travel, editing other writers’ stories, planning presentations, talking with friends and readers about their vacation issues, or researching and arranging my own travel, I was in the air, on the road on one of six continents (visiting more than 120 countries), or at sea on one of an estimated 150 cruise trips. My daughter says that she pictures me, as she grew up, with a notebook in my back pocket. Much of the time I was coming home or going somewhere, and wherever we traveled as a family, I was working a newspaper or magazine travel story.
Along came COVID-19. One day the virus was a foreign curiosity; the next, it seemed, the virus might be in the air we breathed, every surface we touched. Fear and loathing attacked us all, in different ways. For me, my work and lifestyle disappeared in February as if someone had switched off the lights.
Dodging the virus, we have been lucky
Still, my writer wife and I were fortunate that we didn’t get caught up in the cruise ship virus spin. Our travel ended just as the virus appeared. We flew home from Miami after disembarking from perhaps the only cruise ship that never reported a known case of coronavirus. (Earlier, on a trip West, I caught a serious, lingering bout of flu but so far have no COVID-19 perceptible damage).
Since then, we have not boarded an airplane nor a ship, not a bus nor a train, not a taxi nor a tram. Frequent restaurant goers, we have not ventured inside an eatery since early March, though a bunch of local restaurants know our names well from continuing takeout orders (with a generous tip for beleaguered servers).
These past 10 months, mostly in isolation, have been a serious test of resilience, patience, and flexibility. Masked, we keep socially distant, which is such a big distance from our normal lives of riding on public transportation, walking in crowds, attending meetings and lectures, museums, concerts, ballgames, interviews, talking to people we know and don’t know — strangers on the street, on the plane, in taverns, cafes, restaurants, coffee and noodle shops in cities and hamlets all over the world.
I miss the closeness of connecting with fellow travelers, even simple smiles and nods of recognition as we wait in passport lines to enter a country far from home. I miss the kindness of strangers that appears naturally among worldly travelers on the road — and from locals I encounter along the way. I’ve gotten quite good expressing myself non-verbally when I don’t know the language.
Weary of wariness
Now, I despise my wariness of anyone within 6 feet, especially people without masks who arouse my suspicion about their seriousness in not spreading their potential or real virus toward me.
I miss the anonymity of walking for miles in a foreign city, attempting not to stand out too much (although people all over the world easily recognize Americans because of our fashionable dress and our image of moving and talking so confidently as if, they sometimes complain, we owned the place).
I miss mixing with foreign cultures, tasting their food, noticing their styles and odors. I miss the sea, the roll of the ocean, its spray, its squalls, its night sky, and the sound of wind.
Zooming with friends, family, and colleagues has made talk and eye contact possible, though Zoom is no replacement for the lack of warmth and hugs from my children and grandchildren.
My wife, Fran, and I walk a lot – close to home around Cleveland's Shaker Lakes and recently at the Cleveland Cultural Gardens in Rockefeller Park, which I had driven past for 50 years and now have thoroughly toured.
In Cuyahoga and surrounding counties, we have explored an abundance of nature trails, as well as wildlife refuges in marshes along the shore of Lake Erie. Using online maps to make a plan offers some satisfaction as an alternative to the missing, more complex travel preparations. Local trails provide a tingle of joy from walking unknown paths.
For drives farther into the countryside, Fran bought a light-weight portable potty that we store in our car, setting it up behind a tree in a roadside park. The potty is easy to use, with foldout seat, legs, and a disposable bag. For such occasions, Fran dons a muumuu (a long loose dress from Hawaii), which is an image that has created some mirth among friends and family. One friend suggested a YouTube production, "Fran in Muumuu" though so far, we have declined.
Our biggest excursion mistake was visiting a popular trail in Cuyahoga Valley National Park during a warm, sunny weekend. The trail we chose turned out to be crowded. We masked and dodged people until we climbed a set of about 40 steps, which were steep and too narrow for people to pass. As I neared the top, breathing heavily, I realized that more than a dozen people, most without masks, stood in a crowd, waiting for us to arrive so they could walk down the steps. Suddenly, I felt foolishly trapped, sharing their air and consuming it in massive amounts of deep breathing. As I hurried up the last two steps and through the crowd, I promised myself that I would not return on a weekend.
My new favorite days for exploring Northeast Ohio are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Considering post-pandemic days
Someday, probably in 2021 if vaccines work, normal travel will resume. I will wait until I am safe, and others are safe from me.
I expect to carry a protective mask with me, perhaps forever. For decades I have been careful about what I ate and touched, washing hands often and paying attention to my health. I suspect all of us will be more careful in the future, now that we have learned how vulnerable we are, not only to bacteria but also viruses.
COVID-19 has taught us that whatever is exhaled in China could find its way to our neighborhood tavern in a matter of months.
I am not finished with world travel. So much of who I am, what I know and feel about life outside my comfortable American bubble has been a gift from travel. I realize that most people in the world are just trying to get through the day, focusing on food, clothing, shelter, and, if they are fortunate, love, gratitude, and a sense of spirituality.
Images from around the world are burned into my memory bank:
• An evening of Hindu services on the Ganges of India.
• A Bedouin woman, sequestered from the men having tea with her father, sneaking a peek at me from the back flap of the family tent in the desert.
• Tales from a guide in Vietnam, a boat person who never made it to America.
• Entering East Germany as the wall and Soviet Union fences came down in November 1989.
• Two boys from Iraq sweeping away donkey poop at the entrance of Petra in Jordan, laughing with me and pointing at the front page of my International Herald Tribune with pictures of their Saddam Hussein and my President Clinton. We did not speak the same language, but our laughter did.
• Walking in Greece with my daughter to the Eastern Orthodox monasteries at Meteora.
What's next
Antarctica awaits, my seventh continent. So do Lithuania, Poland, and Belarus, where Fran’s family once lived, and maybe to the Black Sea. Good friends want us to visit, reason for another trip to Israel, and maybe renting a gulet in Turkey. I want to return to Cape Town and sail up the eastern coast of Africa. England and France repeatedly call me back for more research into my family that left Normandy for a battle in 1066, then sailed from England for America in 1791. I am writing a book about their experiences.
I love my home and leaving home, setting out on an adventure of discovery. At the moment, I do not know when the next journey will arrive.
Molyneaux is the editor of TheTravelMavens.com. He and Fran Golden are authors of “Unique Eats and Eateries of Cleveland.”