Day 03 East - 01/04/22 Cabo San Lucas

Ian's scenic cruising commentary was our awakening sound on the stateroom television as we sailed down the coast of Baja California.  After a quick Lido breakfast, we watched the sail in as the Captain guided us through the maze of fishing boats.  We fell in line behind the Norwegian Bliss and we were further protected by a circling high speed Mexican Coast guard boat.  There were lots of dolphin and whale sightings as well. 

 

The Koningsdam was already at anchor and the Bliss took a position next to it but with enough room to swing on the anchor chain.  We took the furthest position out and dropped our anchor.  Clearing seemed to take a long time and I headed for the main stage to check on tender tickets.  On the way there I encountered  Captain Van der Hoven and we had a nice brief chat.  He apologized about not being able to be more sociable and we reminisced about the Volendam's grounding on the Amazon River cruise we were on with him just before the pandemic.

 

Finally we were cleared and with our 5 star status we were able to get on the first tender.  Once on shore we easily found our Pirate ship excursion to go whale watching.  Because of the clearance delay, our pirate ship excursion was delayed about an hour. There were only 14 or so guests.  Once we were underway, the party began!  With the music so loud, I found a cool spot way up front and spent the rest of tge excursion there.  It was a fun time with a full Mexican lunch and drinks of choice being served.  

 

Once we passed by the famous arch we soon started seeing whales.  These were humpbacks and they didn't aggressively breech but would slowly roll above water and blow before diving.  I got a few pictures.  We did this for about an hour before heading back into port.  Once there, we walked around the harbor area before boarding a tender just before 4pm.  Speaking of tenders, these tenders are much newer than ones we have been on on other older HAL ships.  

 

Back on board we changed clothes and enjoyed a light dinner at Caneletto, a specialty restaurant.  It turned out that we had sailed with the mater de, and we had a good chat.  In fact it was so distracting that my wife ate most of one of my Gelato ice cream cups.

 

The Main Stage entertainment was a very good English Frankie Valle tribute group, Jukebox Junkies.  They were so good we went back for the 9:30pm performance.  In between, we watched the Lincoln Center Stage musicians perform American Classics.  They were also very good.  We closed out the evening watching most of the Billboard Online pianists followed by a comedian, Mark Yaffee in the BBKing lounge. He was very funny.

 

We learned tonight from Ian that we would be Antigen tested in order to transit the canal.  Also we lose another hour tonight and will be on Chicago time.

Tim Bowman