Mexican Ports of Call

In my last post, I mostly covered the cruise ship Astoria, and discussed the trip itself in very general terms. I was thinking this time I'd tell you a little about our ports of call and my interaction with our stops. Besides my previous entry above, I've also found another online article about the trip you can read here. At left is the Astoria at anchor in our second-to-last port of call in Santa Rosalia.

Our itinerary included 7 stops in addition to Puerto Peñasco as the starting/stopping point. From the "top" of the Sea of Cortez, we travelled south a full day and a half to Topolobampo (no, I had never heard of it either!). It is the port city for Los Mochis, a moderate-sized city on the east side of Cortez. Very similar to our last stop in Guaymas, I found both to be gritty working-class cities, and not especially appealing to travelers. After taking the 40 minute (free) shuttle bus to Los Mochis, we walked a few blocks to the Benjamin Johnston Botanical Garden, built by an American businessman who jump started the local economy by building a giant sugar mill 100+ years ago... Interestingly, the area gets only 2" of rain a year, and of course, it started raining on us, so many headed back to the ship - highlight was buying a bag of freshly-made churros (with neither of us speaking the other's language) from a street vendor for a dollar - delish!

Another full day at sea before reaching Mazatlan. This was the stop where we were docked next to the behemoth holding 5500 passengers... Margie refused to leave the ship, so my usual travel companion Susan (shown at left) joined me leaving the Astoria. As soon as we got dropped off at the dock entrance, we met a very nice American working for a tour company who roped us into a 3-hour van tour (cue the theme from "Gilligan's Island"!). It was a GREAT way to hear and see the highlights of Mazatlan, with plenty of time to stop and visit a half dozen spots. I took a number of shots from the moving van, some better than others. An example at right a mosaic representing Mazatlan - meaning "place of deer". Preparations were in full swing for Carnival, which was a couple weeks away. It looks as if it would be quite the party place!


From one of the hills overlooking the harbor, turning towards the city the big cathedral in town stood out. Shown at left it was soon our destination where our driver gave us 45 minutes to walk around and explore, including a couple shopping options. ALL cathedrals in the Baja area are worth a visit. This one was no exception - the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. Work on it began in 1856 and finished in 1899, its consecration as a basilica in 1941.  It was a pretty amazing place, every place you looked just held your attention.



I wandered around about half of the 45 minutes, then walked the 2 blocks down to the Mercado - not much that interested me. Before heading back to the van I did stop at a convenience store for some bottled water... The faucets in the ship's rooms looked a little brown, and waiting for meals to drink water left me dehydrated, so got a couple tall bottles. Interestingly, nearly 800 miles south of the US border, the local OXXO stores (pronounced Ox-o) seemed glad to take dollars, but gave change in pesos... After touring through town, the guide took us to a restaurant that specialized in seafood. About the only seafood I seek out is shrimp, and the Sea of Cortez is a "hotbed" of shrimp fishing, so was straightforward enough to decide!  Couldn't beat (in my mind) garlic shrimp and a Mexican beer!  We even had a view of the Sea of Cortez and strolling mariachis!




Another night at sea and we pulled into Cabo San Lucas early the next morning. It was a beauty of a day, and the stark contrast of water and sky against the desert tans was so striking! Caught Susan smiling (at left) as we passed by "Land's End", one of the postcard views of Cabo. The Astoria anchored in the harbor and used its own lifeboats to shuttle whoever wanted to go ashore into the dock area. You can tell the difference between Cabo and our previous stops - THIS was a pure tourist town, a land of time shares, condos and hotels. There was little sign of industry or otherwise "normal" city life. The part we hated once we got ashore is that you couldn't walk 30 feet without being accosted for a whale watching tour, or snorkeling, or fishing... It was a constant barrage of competition for the tourist dollar. We ended up just shopping at some of the shops and grabbing a bite to eat along the docks. We were also amazed at the number of swordfish and sailfish that were trundled by that sport fisherman had caught and were unloading... My fave trinket were the t-shirts hawked at one store, shown at right!


Since we spent so little time ashore, I set up my little scope at the fantail and took some close-up views of the mountains, structures and beaches. The ship is NOT a dull place to spend the day if you don't go ashore - besides the mealtimes, there was a small library, movie theater screening Oscar-nominated movies, and a constant roll of activities - 3 trivia contests a day, table tennis contests, and night time musical extravaganzas... The ship got underway again right about sunset and I caught some very nice views of the Land's End rocks with the sunset glows... At left the "arch" can be spotted on the left side, and on the right, I included another passenger enjoying the sunset with me...

Well, I figure I'm about halfway thru the coverage of the ports of call, and rather than make a marathon post, will close it out and work on part 2 in a couple days... Stay tuned!

Cruising Down Mexico Way!

It was a year ago that my buddy Margie brought to my attention that a cruise was starting up plying the Sea of Cortez - 11 days with stops in 8 coastal towns. It sounded like a great trip, so were among the first to get our deposits in. We found out months ago that the cruise ship was the Astoria - a ship with some history! Ancient by cruise ship standards, it was built in 1948 and is the oldest cruse ship still operating! It's greatest brush with fame was in 1956 while named the Stockholm - it collided in fog off Nantucket with the Andrea Doria, which sank! The Stockholm limped into port and survived for another day. Interestingly, a day or two before we launched, there was an article in the Washington Post about the Astoria - a great read! This blog post, first of a few, will concentrate on the ship itself...

The Sea of Cortez cruise ended up making 3 loops of Cortez, and we signed up for the last, leaving 31 January. Since the cruise left from Puerto Peñasco, I went down a day early to stay with Margie, who has a house there. At left at sunset on the 30th, the Astoria could be seen arriving from the previous loop. At right, the next morning (low tide), the Astoria sparkled in the morning light.

Being I'm all new to this cruising thing, I was looking forward to being aboard. Especially when eyeing the sleek lines from the "golden age" of cruise ships. Unfortunately, the harbor at Puerto Peñasco, while supporting a huge shrimp fleet, is too shallow for the Astoria to come to any dock. It might also have something to do with the 6-meter tides that occur there. In any case, they used local companies to "tender" us out to the ship, so got a good view of it as we approached via a sizeable catamaran. It sure looked huge as we approached! We pulled up to a door just above the water line and after they tied up we climbed up a short ramp to enter. Our luggage was in piles at the dock and took quite a while to catch up to us. Later I spied the same catamaran full of luggage and a crew humping them on board. It was nice to not be restricted to a single bag under 50 pounds like the arlines. And how DO you pack for an 11-day trip? I ended up over-packing, with 2 suitcases, and also a small telescope and tripod, hoping to do a little viewing from the deck...

Once onboard, we checked in and got our ID card and room key - both to be carried at all times on a lanyard. I went exploring and quickly got a feel for the ship. Nowadays, this is considered pretty small, and I never got disoriented. There were only about 4 floors where most of the action took place, from our rooms on 3rd floor to the promenade deck and movie theater on 5.  The only confusing part was there were two 4th floors - one for rooms and another for the buffet dining, stores and show lounge... Margie and I quickly found our rooms - was actually a little bigger than the cramped quarters I expected. Originally signing up for the least-expensive "inner cabin" without a view, we had been upgraded to "ocean view" with a pair of 16" portholes to see what it was like outside. It looks as though at some point in the past the portholes were open-able, but they were firmly fastened now. The only bad thing was that of the two elevators on board, the one near our rooms was out of commission, so I never used the one that did work, and climbed LOTS of stairs over the coarse of the 11 days!

The first order of business after getting settled into our rooms mid-afternoon - find out where the food was! The buffet-style dining room was 2 floors above our room, and we wandered up there - and they were serving! Usually they are open for 2 hours around breakfast lunch and dinner, so definitely not 24-hour food service like I hear about on the big ships... There was a good variety of food, a few entrees and sides, then usually appetizers, a small salad and cheese section, then a bread table and a variety of desserts. Also waiters wandered to get you what you wanted to drink, from water, soda, beer or wine - all included during dining hours. There were seating areas on both sides of the serving area, so you had good picture-window quality views while eating there, shown at left.

The other first order of business was the lifeboat drill! We needed to go to our muster station with life jackets properly worn. Shown at right, attendance was mandatory! More stair climbing, we were in lifeboat 8 (there were 8 in total). Margie is at right against the wall.

It was such a nice ship! I like walking around and taking in the views, so multiple times a day I would be out on the promenade deck, where you could walk around the entirety of the ship (6 laps per mile!), enjoying the view, watching the crew as we docked and undocked, and just watch the stars at night. I always liked to say that I wanted to "make sure we were going in the right direction" before going to bed at night, and it was true! Also, it was fun to see the stars shift as we moved south. From Mazatlan, our southernmost point of the trip, Canopus, normally a few degrees above the horizon from Tucson, was a good 9 degrees higher! And of course, Polaris was that much lower... At left is a panorama of the promenade deck just before we left from Puerto Penasco - note the small swimming pool, and the lounge around it that was open late for drinks and conversation. At right is that first sunset just before taking off, with the sun hidden behind a light fixture...

I had my little telescope set up near the pool, showing the first quarter moon to gratifying ooohs and aaahs! It was right then we took off and at left is the gradual turn south as we leave the skyline of Rocky Point behind...

Like I said, I never got lost - it was pretty easy to get around. There were maps like shown at right scattered around, and it was pretty easy to find your way. Most of the places you wanted to go to was on floor 4a, most of the others had rooms on them. The exceptions were the movie theater on 5th floor stern, and the sit-down formal dining room on the 3rd floor, literally 20 yards from our room (I ate there twice - took too long to get waited on for a 5 course meal!).


Like I said, the Astoria is considered a small ship by modern standards, and sure enough, we saw the proof in Mazatlan! We happened to be parked adjacent to the Carnival Panorama, put into service just 2 months before. Shown at left, you can barely see the Astoria over the warehouses on the docks compared to the Panorama. See it there, looking more like a bathtub toy compared to the behemoth! At twice the length and 10 times the tonnage, it holds 5,500 passengers, over 10X our little boat! I think it would be great for people with short attention spans, as in conversations with some of the passengers, they have everything you can think of to keep you busy for those overnight runs to the next stop!

I liked our little Astoria. Finally on our second-to-last night at sea, was able to get a night time photo of us underway.  We were traversing the Sea of Cortez from Santa Rosalia on the west side to Guaymas on the eastern coast. About a 1 second exposure under a nearly-full moon, it was always a beautiful view, if not a little windy and cold...

Finally it was over and it was time to leave our home-away-from-home... After 11 days we were tendered back to the docks of Puerto Penasco. Interestingly, our little catamaran tender was FAST, and we nearly caught up to the one that left before us! You can spot the harbor master in the boat shadowing us at the right... I was in about the last group of passengers to unload - my luggage was the last to be claimed on the dock...

Margie's gardener met us in her truck to haul our luggage back. It had poured rain the day before and the town was a mass of water and mud! In about the hour it took to collect ourselves and get to her place, I climbed to her observation deck and what did I spot - the Astoria heading south at full speed!  They were supposed to be in England in 3 weeks to start a series of cruises between London and Norway - the "Northern Lights Cruise"!

The Washington Post article up above indicates that the Astoria is to be mothballed at the end of the Europe Summer tour season. It will be a sad day in my opinion.  As far as cruises in the Sea of Cortez go, it seems to be a perfect size! While it supposedly holds 550 passengers, it held about 400 on our trip.  Why bring in something much larger if it can't be filled... Anyway, I found a website that shows the current position of the Astoria! As of right now, 7 + days after it kicked us off, it is off the coast of Costa Rica, headed to the Panama Canal to transition to the Atlantic... Will be fun to watch it cross and ply the waters of the North Sea, wondering if our friends Aida and Elizabeth are still belting out the songs in the lounge, and if they have different trivia contests on that side of "the pond" than they do here! More posts and pictures to come...