Monday January 27, 2025 – At Sea Panama Canal to Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala
Another nice day at sea filled with interesting lectures and a terrific show. The first one was Graham who did the San Francisco Port Presentation. Then the British swimmer – Rebecca Adlington – My Olympic Journey and life after swimming. She is from a very small town in England near Nottingham and gave a very interesting talk about her love of swimming and starting to enter competitions by the age of 4. She continued on to win Olympic medals in Beijing breaking a record that had stood for 19 years. She specialized in the 400 and 800 meter free style and also won medals in the London Olympics in 2012. A humble vivacious lady who achieved great success and was recognized by Queen Elizabeth II for her efforts with an OBE. She now is a commentator on broadcast news about swimming.
Lawrence Kuznetz – Mars could save your life. An interesting talk about the various efforts to go to Mars and the development of equipment and supplies that will allow individuals to fly the 8 months to Mars, 7 months back and 1 1/2 hears there. He, with his students and colleagues, have developed a suit that incorporated the necessary accoutrements to live on Mars. He has developed a prototype and got one of the traveling guests to try it on and presented her on stage. He is looking for investors to move from one prototype to initial production with the expectation that not only will this be used on Mars, but for US$200, everyone would have one of these suits at home in case of another pandemic as it can be used to protect against any germ, virus or microbe. A bit strange for a Cunard lecture as one felt that it was more of a commercial venture hoping to get investors.
George Kourounis – Skycrapers at Sea was the third lecture and talked about all the developments of underwater volcanoes and tectonic plate shifts that cause land to appear on the surface of the water, in the form of islands or how nature can eliminate them through massive volcanic explosions.
The show in the evening was the brilliant UK Multi-Instrumentalist Mark Donoghue, who plays the violin, harmonica, piano, sings etc and is a fanrastic performer. A terrific show.
Should you be cruising and on overland tours beware of the Jones Act . The Jones Act or its official name – Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 regulates and protects the maritime commerce of the USA. Other countries have similar protection acts. Basically it states that a foreign registered vessel cannot pick up merchandise or people in one US port and drop the merchandise or person in another US port unless it has stopped at another country that is not proximal to the USA. Canada, Mexico, Central America and the Northern Carribean, Bermuda etc are proximal, whereas (what used to be called) the Dutch Antilles (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao), Cartagena, Colombia etc are considered distant ports. Thus Panama Canal cruises that go from New York of Florida to California have to stop in Aruba or Cartagena to comply with the Jones Act. While the Jones Act per se does not cover Cruise Ship Passengers the (June 19th) 1886 Passenger Vessel Services Act (or Passenger Services Act) does a similar “job” which does not allow Cruise Ships with a foreign registry to carry passengers between one US port and another US port without having gone to a distant port in between. So a passenger getting on in New York on a foreign vessel going to Miami, cannot get off without a significant fine. The exception, is for example Alaska cruises, where a foreign vessel carries passengers from Seattle to other US ports in Alaska, but must stop in a foreign port (in Canada) before returning to the same port. In this case as it returns to the same port where it started, a “proximal” foreign country (Canada) can be used as a non-US port prior to returning. However if a passenger wants to get off in an Alaska port, even if it is for emergency medical reason, that cruise company and thus the passenger(s) are each subject to a fine (currently about US$1,000).
Roger & Anne Travels 