February 9, 2025
PUERTO DESEADO, ARGENTINA
Puerto Deseado is a sleepy little town that gets 1 cruise ship, every 3 months. There is not a lot to do there, but it is home to a large colony of Rock Jumper penguins, seen here. We have to tender in from this port and wave swells are so high that it is not safe for us to tender to port our second day there. This was a bummer for us because a group of about 30 of us had planned and excursion out to see the rock hoppers up close and personal. Several others got to see them on our first port day, so we have their photo's to live vicariously. We did get some amazing sunsets and rainbows the last couple of days despite the choppy seas.
On Saturday August 29, 2026 we achieved another historic milestone on this circumnavigation of the World , we cruised into Hong Kong Harbor. Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. The land encompassed by Hong Kong is confusing. It includes part of the southern coast of mainland China, just below Shenzhen, Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories . Looking at a map helps, but the rules changed so many times! I asked my buddy Chat several times, to tell me if what I was looking at was the Hong Kong that the British had owned for years. The answer was never straight forward!
Ha Long Bay in Vietnam is one of those bucket list places I have had in my sights for years. It's the iconic picture in my mind's eye, whenever I think of Vietnam . We had made plans to go with 8 others on a brand new, swanky Red Dragon Junk boat for a harbor cruise and overnight stay, but sadly the weather did not cooperate the whole 4 days we were in port. No ships were permitted to sail, per the local government. Many of us were bummed! This is typhoon session and there was a lot of rain and high winds our first couple of days - we were hoping it would blow out the last day and we could at least do a day trip but no luck!
To get to the final stop on our Vietnam FUN Tour in Hue, we had our driver take us on the scenic route called the Hai Van Pass. This 3 hour drive took us back through Da Nang and then into mountains and along coast for what is generally a very scenic route. Unfortunately for us, it was mainly covered in clouds and fog.