Rough Water - Viking Sky, Viking Star, Viking Sun

The Viking Sky was in the news recently because it had run into dangerously rough seas in a shallow bay. There are many You-Tube videos of furniture and people on the Viking Sky dealing with the effects of the seas. I had already been puzzling through the sea state we had encountered in September 2016 on the Viking Star.  Until this recent incident with the Viking Sky, our journey on the Viking Star may have been the worst Viking had suffered through.  The storm we endured was quite short in time - less than 24 hours. We had been told that we had 60-foot waves and 90 miles an hour winds.  Later I would wonder if that was even possible. Was it really 60-foot waves and 90 miles an hour winds, or was it 90-foot waves and 60 miles an hour winds?

View from 5th Deck of Viking Star After Storm

Friends had taken the same route on the Viking Star in 2017 and had also encountered rough seas and some damage to the ship and tenders.  We had talked briefly about our experiences in the past, but when Bill and Roberta joined us on the Viking Sun this year for part of our trip, we had more time to discuss the details.  Bill is a retired sea captain, so his opinion was something I really value.

Bill was reluctant to state an opinion on the sea state. The official call of the sea state is made by the Captain of the ship.  There is no scientific method of accurately measuring sea state from a vessel-- the final decision on sea state is based on the Captain's experience and judgment.  When I asked Bill if I could have the numbers on sea state versus wind reversed, he said it didn't matter.  The numbers were so high the accuracy didn't matter.

After Bill and Roberta headed back home, I did some more research on sea states to try to understand better what Bill meant.  And shortly after the incident with the Viking Sky, we happened to have lunch with Robin Petch, the Wildlife Expert on the Viking Sun.  Robin's first assignment with Viking was on that Viking Star cruise in 2016.  I asked Robin what he remembered about the seas and winds.  He couldn't remember the exact numbers, but he said he remembered that the sea-height was over 40 feet, and the winds were hurricane force.

Sea State

The height of a wave is measured from the trough (lowest point) to the crest (highest point).  The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) collects data on wave heights from buoys scattered across the oceans.  These are considered to be the most accurate measurements, but they aren't everywhere.  So the WMO also collects sea state data from ships all over the world to augment their data and calculations about sea states.  According to Bill, these inputs from the vessels provide critical real-time adjustments to the data supplied to every vessel. The data from the ships is based on the judgment and experience of the Captain. But when the ship is moving up-and-down with huge waves, it is much harder to make an accurate assessment.

On this trip on the Viking Sun, we have experienced the "very rough" range of waves several times.  On the Viking Star, our Sea State code would have been "phenomenal" -- essentially over the top of the chart! So now I understand why Bill said it didn't matter if it was 60 feet or 90 feet.  Based on what Robin remembered, though, the lower number had to have been the waves because 60 mph winds are below hurricane strength.

Winds

Living on the Gulf Coast for over 30 years has made me very familiar with the Saffir-Simpson Scale for hurricane winds. The categories range from 1 to 5, with 5 having the highest winds and the highest potential for massive damage. Still, a Category 1 storm that is very wide and very slow can cause more harm than a narrow and fast hurricane from a higher category. The descriptions of the categories are from the National Hurricane Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Although I vaguely remembered the talk about "hurricane-force winds," I have become so used to higher winds in hurricanes that a "Cat 1" wind level didn't stick in my memory as much as the 90 mph number.

Slipping and Sliding

Does everyone on the ship feel the effects of rough seas and high winds the same? No. It matters where you are on the ship.  The Viking Ocean ships are relatively small - 8 decks up (numbered 1-8) and 2 decks down (a and b).  The lower the deck the less you are affected by the rolling of the ship.  The effect is similar to an earthquake in a tall building.  Small quakes may only be felt on the top floors of skyscrapers while people are the ground don't even know anything is happening.

Most of the videos I saw of the Viking Sky were from the Explorer Lounge on Deck 7.  The Explorer Lounge has mostly smooth floors with padded chairs and couches that are reasonably lightweight. While sitting in the Explorer Lounge with 16-foot waves, the chairs would slide a few inches to one side and then swing back a few inches the other way.  On other decks, the furniture pretty much stayed in place with the same 16-foot waves.

On the Viking Star in 2016, we were in a restaurant on Deck 1 when the storm hit.  The dining tables, chairs, and people in the chairs were sliding maybe a foot or two and then would swing back.  Wine racks crashed to the floor at the far aft end of the restaurant, but the experience was more unnerving than hazardous.  Later we heard that the response from the waiters near the wine racks was, "We never trained for this!"

After dinner, we decided to go to our room rather than to the theater on Deck 2.  On Deck 5, things were sliding around much more than on Deck 1.  We put the bathroom tumblers and soap-dish in the bathroom sink. We put our water carafe and glasses inside our trash can.  When the storm was over, none of these items in our room were broken. The next morning we heard from others who had done the same were not so lucky.  I peeked through the window at times to see the storm, but most of the night, we just stayed in bed and rocked back and forth.

After the Storm

In the morning, all was calm. I went out and took photos.  The divider between our outside deck area and our neighbors was gone.  Later we noticed that several of these had blown away in the storm. We went up to the 7th Deck World Cafe for breakfast.  Many of the crew were seasick and exhausted after their experiences through the night. The World Cafe was nearly deserted. Many of the dishes and glasses were broken in the storm.  But that had all been cleaned up before morning.  The waiters in the Pool Grill and Bar were very proud that none of their glasses were broken (all plastic!).

We traveled on and missed some ports because of bad weather but finished our journey.

Windy

Now we travel with the Windy App (https://www.windy.com), so we can see for ourselves what the winds, waves, and swells are and what we are heading into.  We are learning we can walk (carefully) with 16-foot waves, but limit our movement.  Bad weather is part of life and traveling.

#myvikingjourney

How Did You Hurt Your Knee? Part 1 - Seattle

How did you hurt your knee?  That sounds like a simple question, but in my case, it really isn’t.  It was a common question when I was on crutches in High School, and now again, while I am wearing a big knee brace while traveling around the world.  Unlike most people in those situations, I didn’t hurt my knee.  I don’t really remember a time when my knees didn’t hurt, but there was never any traumatic event that caused the problems or the pain.

Patellar Subluxation, Dislocation, and Osteoarthritis

As an adult, I know the problem is from the knee caps partially or fully dislocating. Recurrent subluxation or dislocations over a long time cause the loss of cartilage in the knee area from osteoarthritis.  Osteoarthritis is the “wear and tear” type of arthritis more usually caused by injuries or age. By the time I was 15, I had stage 4 osteoarthritis – the last stage, commonly called “bone-on-bone.” At that time, the only solution for stage 4 osteoarthritis was a total knee replacement.  The problem was no one made artificial knees sized for young girls, so that wasn’t an option.

First Signs and “Growing Pains”

First Grade

My parents first took me to a doctor about my knee pain when I was in Kindergarten. It was diagnosed as “growing pains.” By first grade, I was falling down from subluxation and the occasional full dislocation of either knee cap during physical education class. Since children fall down frequently, no adult really noticed what was going on.  I would just wait until the knee cap moved back to where it belonged, or if that took too long, I just hit it back into place. Naturally, the big words of “subluxation.” and “dislocation” were not in my vocabulary, so telling the doctor “my knees hurt” and “I fall down” did not change the diagnosis away from “growing pains.” I imagine my description of hitting my knee cap into place was beyond comprehension.

I don’t remember how old I was when I told my Mom I didn’t want to go to the doctor anymore because all he would say is that I would grow out of the pain, even though it got worse every year. The only way I could think of to stay away from the doctor was to stop talking about the pain and the falling down. So I guess I just stopped talking about it.

In second grade, my Mom signed me up for the local swim team.  Swimming was a pretty good sport for my problem – I only had issues with dives and climbing out of the pool.  A few years later, Mom signed me up for alpine ski lessons. Usually, the first lesson in skiing is how to fall down and get back up.
So my falling down didn’t seem any different than anyone else.  The cold did make the knees hurt worse. When I was 13, my parents decided to put me on a children’s ski racing team.  Naturally, I fell down during the races and rarely completed a race.  But “fear of winning” was a big thing in popular psychology at the time, and my parents had me nearly convinced that was the reason I fell down in the ski races.  It didn’t explain the falling down just walking, but I guess I still didn’t talk about that.

I went from ski racing to becoming a ski instructor while I was in High School. I worked as an Associate Ski Instructor for a couple of years but by the time I had enough experience to apply to become a Certified Ski Instructor, the knees wouldn’t cooperate.  There was no way I could pass the demonstration portion of the test.

Skiing at Stevens Pass

When I was 15 or 16, one knee swelled up so much I couldn’t walk on it.  I was still refusing to go to the pediatrician. My parents decided I had to go, but they picked a different pediatrician as part of our negotiations.  The new pediatrician put me on crutches and told my parents that they needed to take me to a specialist.  There was a new field of orthopedics called “sports medicine” that was just coming into being, and I went to the first sports medicine clinic in Seattle, which was under the University of Washington football stadium and part of the College of Medicine.  Dr. James G. Garrick headed the clinic and all the research.

Diagnosis and Treatment

Within minutes, Dr. Garrick diagnosed what had caused all the years of pain.  A combination of a slight case of scoliosis, a slight difference in length between right leg and left leg, underdeveloped medial quadricep muscles, and tendons, which pulled the knee caps to the outside and dislocation.  A combination of things that just didn’t “grow right”.  Nearly all the damage that could have been done by the subluxation and dislocations had been done already.  

The only known solution for the resulting osteoarthritis was total knee replacements for both knees, but that wasn’t a viable solution for my age.  I hadn’t yet hit my full height of 5’4” and weighed around 105 pounds. All Dr. Garrick could do was to try to alleviate the pain by putting me a few clinical trials and experimental physical therapy.  He also put me on a regimen that included taking 8 aspirin a day to reduce the swelling in my knees.  Eventually, he got me into the last stage of clinical trials for a surgical procedure he invented called “lateral release”. It is now the most common surgical procedure to treat patellar subluxation.

He wanted me to drop out of high school during my senior year to do the surgery. I was not willing, so he scheduled the surgery for the last day of the final stage of the clinical trial – the morning after my high school graduation.  Because I decided to graduate instead of taking the year off, I spent much of my senior year in a blur of pain.  But I was still teaching skiing.  I couldn’t demonstrate much, so I had a junior instructor helping me with all my classes.  A few of my high school classmates were aware of what was going on and helped me keep up with my classes.  One friend somehow figured out how to tell when my knees were going to give way, and he would catch me before they buckled. He would hold me up until the knee cap popped back into place, and then I would head off to my next class.

First Knee Surgery

The morning of surgery, Dr. Garrick came in and asked me to pick which knee he would operate on. They were in equally bad health, so it didn’t really matter which one and I chose the left.  After surgery, I woke up with no pain – something I was not wholly comfortable with.  As the surgical anesthetics wore off, I started feeling more “normal”.  Even after it all wore off, the surgical pain from the left knee was less than the usual pain (which I still had from the right knee). The nurses kept trying to get me to take some kind of pain killer, but I refused.  Eventually, they put morphine into my IV when I wasn’t watching, and we all discovered that morphine made me very ill.

Dr. Garrick moved out of state into private practice a few days after my surgery.  His remaining associates were uncomfortable in dealing with the rehab of Dr. Garrick’s last surgical patients, and they kept me on crutches for 3 months, which caused a lot of issues with the knee that hadn’t had any surgery yet.  I had to wait for Dr. Garrick’s protégé, Dr. Steven Bramwell, to graduate from residency before I could get the right knee treated.

Second and Third Knee Surgeries

I started having stomach problems and asthma from the aspirin regimen, so Dr. Bramwell switched me to coated aspirin and later to naproxen.  The bursa on the right knee became extraordinarily swollen, and nothing Dr. Bramwell tried would reduce it down to standard size.  Eventually, he decided that the bursa had to be removed.  During the surgery, he discovered that several nerves were damaged from being stretched across the swollen bursa.  After surgery, I lost all feeling between my knee and my ankle.  A couple of years later, these nerves came back to life. Fortunately, all the nerves in and around my knee were still working.  

About six months after Dr. Bramwell removed the bursa, he scheduled the left knee for surgery again – this time, the lateral release.  The lateral release was successful, and for several years I managed to stay upright. I was still taking naproxen to control the swelling.

Part 2 - Houston ...

Easter Island - But No T-Shirt

I am sitting on my veranda with my computer, looking across the bay to Easter Island. I feel blessed to be here but sad that I won't actually get to step on land.  I was looking forward to seeing the Orongo Village remains, the Rano Kau Volcano, and hearing more about the religion and politics of the "birdman." I also was looking forward to seeing and hearing about the previous faith with the Rano Rakuri Quarry at the Ranu Rakuri Volcano, the Ahu Tonguriki, and the enormous Moai.  But Easter Island is notoriously difficult to access because of the seas.  When we anchored in the bay, it felt like we were sitting on a children's bouncy castle or as I overheard on the ship - a washing machine.  When the sun rose, I could see the waves splashing up high on the banks of the island, but I was still hopeful we would get on the island, see the sights, and buy the T-shirt and miniature statues to prove we were there.

Cook Bay (Hanga Roa Bay), Easter Island

The captain sent the first tender boat off to shore to assess the conditions, and we waited and waited.  Then we waited some more; the swells were so high that they had to close the tender doors because so much water was coming into the ship.  Eventually, the captain made an announcement - the swells were too high for a safe transfer from the ship to the island. So instead of just leaving, he decided to take us on tour around the island, and the port authority (who had boarded before the first tender left) agreed to tell us all about his island as we went around.

Moto Nui, Moto Iti, Moto Kau Kau, and Easter Island

The Birdman religion replaced the previous ancestor-based religion represented by the Moai. Part of the Birdman religion and politics required an annual contest in which one member from each tribe climbed down off the towering cliff on Easter Island and swam to one of the small islets - Moto Nui, Moto Iti, or Moto Kau Kau. Each tribe member waited for a bird to come and lay an egg, collected the bird egg, and swam back.  The chieftain of the tribe member who returned first with an egg intact became the King for a year.  The King served in isolation for 6 months and then in public for 6 months.  Then the cycle started again.

Ahu Tangariki, Easter Island

This is the closest we got to any of the Moai.  According to our port authority narrator, these are not Moai once they are standing in place and have their eyes installed.  At that point, they become the living embodiment of the Rapa Nui ancestors. The statues are standing with their backs to us - facing their descendants.

By the time we made it all the way around, the island was engulfed in the rain and was barely visible from the ship.  A small boat with an outboard motor came and collected the port authority and took him back to the harbor.

Now nothing of the island is visible as we head off towards Tahiti a couple of hours ahead of schedule.

Maybe someday we will try again to go to Easter Island, but it may not be called that by the time we get back.  The Dutch named the island Easter Island because they first saw it on Easter Sunday in 1722.  The Spanish named is St. Charles Island in 1770, but that didn't last. The island is working to get the official name back to the original Rapa Nui.

Remembering "The Disappeared"

Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

On our tour of Buenos Aires, we were taken to the Plazo de Mayo. This is a square in the center area of Buenos Aires near Casa Rosada. Casa Rosada is the pink building where the President of Argentina has his office. That building is also referred to as the Government House.  The Plazo de Mayo is the site of many historic protests.

But what caught my attention when we stepped off the bus onto the plaza was the tour guide's mention of "the disappeared."  I was in high school during the height of the disappearing, and I knew from the news reports that many of those disappearing were my age.  The idea that the government could just abduct a high school student and make them "disappear" was frightening.  Most of the people abducted were taken to secret government locations and tortured.   A small number were eventually released, but most were never seen again and presumed dead.

In 1977 a group of mothers began protesting against "The Disappearing."  The wore white kerchiefs on their heads to represent diapers.  Some of these women were abducted and became part of the disappeared themselves. Reporting a disappearance was often a trigger to become "disappeared" yourself, so reporting became very limited.

The white kerchief designs ring the Plaza de Mayo to remind Argentinians that many of the disappeared have never been found.

According to the report Nunca Más (Never Again), the Argentinian government formed a commission called The National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons.  The commission's report was published in 1984. At that time, the commission had been able to track down records of just under 9,000 of the presumed 30,000 people who had disappeared.  The report itself is quite long, and the details they uncovered are horrifying.

I discovered in  Nunca Más that just over 10% of those reported as disappeared were 16-20, which was my age bracket at the time.  The largest group were those aged 21-30 when they were abducted. This age group accounts for 58% of the reported disappeared.

While we were at the plaza, I watched busy people crossing the square with none really looking down at the white kerchiefs.  For the people old enough to remember, the kerchiefs may be a painful sight.  For those too young to remember, I wonder if they mean anything at all.

Mugging in Buenos Aires

-Sorry I haven't written in a while. I struggle with writing to start with, and the mugging experience gave me writer's block.

In Argentina and Brazil, we were warned by Viking and local tour guides to leave jewelry back on the ship.  A Brazilian tour guide told us that thieves would rip necklaces right off your neck and the same with earrings.  And he said that Rolex watches and cell phones are always a prime target.

The problem is that we hear the warnings but don't believe it.  Until someone you know describes their experience, it doesn't seem real.  Who would want this necklace I wear every day that my grandmother/spouse/sister ... gave me?  How can I wander about the town without a watch?  How will I know when to get back to the rendezvous point for my tour or ship?

Other than his children, my husband only has one thing he treasured from his first marriage - a Rolex watch.  He cherished it as an engineer would - he loved how it functioned. As long as he wore it, it would keep telling time. No batteries, just the motion of everyday living, kept it going.  Periodically it would slow down, or the crystal would get so scratched up you could barely read the time. He would take it into a watch repair shop, they would clean out all the dust and replace the crystal and then it was like new again. In addition to keeping time, it had a little window that showed the day of the month (1-31).  On months that had less than 31 days, he had to remember to manually roll the date forward to get it to 1 again.  Shortly before we left on this trip, the day-wheel got stuck between two numbers and wouldn't go ahead anymore.  The crystal face was looking somewhat battered again, but he didn't have time to get that all fixed before we left on the trip.

So when he heard the warnings about not wearing a Rolex, he thought that his watch was too old and damaged to be of any interest to a thief. If he took it off, he wouldn't know what time it was, and he might need to reset the time on the watch if it stopped while we were gone.


So off we went exploring Buenos Aires. He with his Rolex and me with my iWatch and its elastic velcro band.    Like many other big cities, Buenos Aires converted one street, Florida, to pedestrians-only to provide a mall-like shopping experience.

Buenos Aires Argentina - Redline is the pedestrian-only part of Florida St.

We took a Viking-provided shuttle bus to Plaza Hotel Buenos Aires. The bus ran every 30 minutes except for a long break at dinner time.  We were carefully watching our time, so we didn't end up waiting for the bus in that long dinner break.

Our Path Along Florida

We meandered through 4 blocks of Florida Calle.  Many shops were boarded over, and the ones that were not closed were desperate for customers.   The sales clerks would come out of the shop to try to recruit customers to come in and see what they had to offer.  The ones from the many leather shops and cashmere shops were especially assertive in the heat of summer.

One thing we were looking for was a post office to send cards home to our grandchildren.  The map we had was inaccurate, and we don't speak any Spanish, but eventually, we were able to get a store clerk to direct us to the post office.  We mailed off the postcards and started back to the Plaza Hotel, where we would board the bus back to the ship.  The heat had taken its toll, and we were ready to go back to the Viking Sun.

We had considered buying some leather clothing, but the more we thought about it, the less appealing that was.  After all, Houston rarely gets cold enough to wear warm clothing.

Even though Florida didn't allow any vehicles, the cross streets did.  The google street view below shows our view of the intersection of Florida and Paraguay as we waiting for the crossing light to turn green.  (Big red  X on the map above.)

The strange part of this particular street view from Google is the lack of people in the street.  What we saw was a wall of pedestrians 2-3 people deep waiting to cross. This street view allows you to spin the image around, and then you can see the side of the intersection where we were standing, also 2-3 people deep all across Florida. I was standing behind and to the right of my husband as we waited for the light.

Suddenly I see a man's arm reaching down towards my husband's neck on the left side.  I scream, and everybody turns to look at us instead of the light. And then, we all saw the man run and jump on a motorcycle that appeared in the cross street precisely in time for the thief.  The driver of the motorcycle was wearing a helmet that kept him disguised. Although my first thought was someone was trying to kill my husband, he appeared perfectly fine when I turned back from the motorcycle to him.  But something must have happened - so I checked for his watch.  The Rolex was gone, and in its place were bruises and scrapes.

The next moments seemed to be total chaos.  We don't know any Spanish, and everyone was talking at once.  A police inspector appeared right away on the other side of Paraguay. Immediately the pedestrians on both sides of the street told her what happened. They gave descriptions of both of the men as best as they were able.  The locals appeared to be angry at the thieves and, at the same time, ashamed of this blot on the reputation of their city.  The inspector made calls on her radio, and then she disappeared.

A Brazilian athlete working on the corner you see on the left came over to tell us to wait for the police to come back and that the police were chasing the thieves. As we waited, we started processing what had happened.  The man who landed on the motorcycle was only of average height -- so how did he reach down towards my husband's neck?  The only conclusion I could come up with is that he ran and jumped so that he could come down on the watch with enough force to break the watch band.

My husband didn't even realize what had happened until I noticed his watch was missing. He, too, was focused on the man's arm coming down towards his neck.




Eventually, two police officers came to talk to the Brazilian man and then us.  They were dressed in a police uniform that consisted of distinctive polo shirts and khaki pants.  Their duty station appeared to be restricted to Florida St. Then, the police inspector came back. She was wearing a typical police uniform.  Then two more police in standard uniforms but mounted on bicycles came.  The inspector and the two bicycle police were dripping with sweat from their unsuccessful chase.

Then they tried to take a statement from us - but their English was almost as limited as our Spanish.  They called another policeman on the phone, and he talked to my husband.  The inspector wanted to know if we wanted to go to the police station and give a formal report.  I asked if there was any chance of getting the watch back, and she did not think so.  We needed to get back to the ship, so we said no to the formal report.  But they still needed some information.  They asked for a passport.  We didn't have those as they were in a central vault on the ship.  We showed them our ship identification. It was not overly helpful with the identification information they were looking for, but the photo of the  Viking Sun on the back did help with the concept of "ship."
I finally found a copy of his passport on my phone, and the police took a photo of my photo.  This seems to make everyone satisfied with the identification, but they were quite upset and worried about us getting back to the ship safely.  As you can see from the second map, we were only one block away from our bus, so we elected to go to the bus rather than take a taxi.  The two police in polo shirts walked along with us as we headed to the bus.  As we came to the end of the block, the police recruited a newspaper vendor to ask us exactly where the bus would be.  We told the newspaper vendor, and she relayed that information to the police. They were somewhat concerned that our bus stop was just out of sight of the limits of their duty station, but I think the newspaper vendor assured them that the hotel was a safe place.

So what did we learn from this experience?  1) What is "valuable" is in the eye of the beholder. Even a damaged Rolex is worth something on the black market.  2) The locals flocked to the police to tell what they saw instead of scattering to the wind. That was quite impressive.  3) The police gave every indication that they really cared about what happened to the tourists but were unable to stop the thieves.  4) The shock of an attack like that lingers much longer than the bruises and scrapes. We had several sleepless nights with thoughts of what might have been.

Getting the Shore Excursions You Want

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had built a spreadsheet to track lots of things related to this long voyage. One of those things was to assess what shore excursions we wanted to take.  Our goal was to see as much different culture, wildlife, and natural beauty as possible.

Viking regularly provides one shore excursion per port as part of the cost of the cruise.  These are generally walking or bus tours of the historical and architectural buildings in the town or city.  And the rest of the time in port can be spent wandering around, shopping, or paying for additional excursions.

The additional excursions per port vary wildly by price and availability.  A cooking lesson in someone's house may not be overly costly, but perhaps only 12 people (out of 950 onboard) can go.  Other excursions may be able to handle hundreds of people, but be quite expensive.  And there is everything in between.

Viking, like the other cruise lines, set priorities on when you can book your excursions.  The date when you can start booking tours is printed on every receipt and is listed on all the promotional material on the Viking website.  Viking uses room categories for their prioritization.  Other cruise lines may use a combination of room category and some kind of loyalty credit.  But no matter which way a cruise line prioritizes booking of shore excursions, if you are not prepared to make your choices very early on the first day of your booking opportunity, you may lose out on options.  Even the included tours must be booked as soon as you can so you can choose the time you want to go.

An excursion with limited capacity may already be full before your booking date. Still, if you are not ready very early on your first booking day, you will never know if there had been some openings, and you missed out because of your own inaction.  On one cruise, we missed out on an included tour because I didn't realize I needed to book it.

On this cruise, the additional excursion my husband wanted the most was a particular safari in Africa. So when our day came, the first thing I booked was that safari.  I went back later that morning to look at the safari again, and there was a notice on it -- SOLD OUT.  It took us a few days to work through the 128 days of the cruise and book all the included tours and the additional excursions we were willing to pay for.

Taking a tour all the way up to the Christ, the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro was another high priority for us, and I booked it very early.  That tour never showed up SOLD OUT because Viking was able to get enough buses and tour guides to accommodate hundreds of people. An excursion I wanted on the Falkland Islands I also booked early, and I didn't find out until yesterday that it sold out shortly as well.

People we have met on the cruise have asked how we managed to get on some of these limited capacity tours.  All I can say is we had the spreadsheet with all our decisions, and I got up very early on the first day we were allowed to book excursions and worked through them in our priority order as fast as I could.  If I had gone in the calendar order, I probably would have lost out on that safari.

Les Îles du Salut, French Guiana

Two of the islands in the Les Îles du Salut were used as a French prison.  Îlse Royale held the main prison complex, the guards. And the home of the prison warden.  Îlse du Diable was for the most challenging prisoners, and those who were sent there stayed for life. Îlse du Diable was seen as impossible to escape from, so the prisoners were not guarded.

The book and movie "Papillon" is the autobiography of the only known person to escape the prison and live.

The easy path up the island

The Viking ship set anchor in the bay, and we took tenders to Îlse Royale.  Everything was uphill from that point.  We went up the less rigorous path that wrapped around the island climbing to the top of the island where most of the prison and other buildings were situated.  We passed the children's cemetery as we climbed. Even at an easy climb, the heat and humidity took a toll.

Children's Cemetery

Today the Capuchin monkeys, some peacocks, termites, and the human caretakers are the principal inhabitants of the island. One of the prison buildings is now a hotel, so we were able to get a cold drink after finding our way to the top of the island.  The little gift shop in the hotel smelled heavily of mold - probably from the building itself.

Prison Wall