It’s 5:00 a.m. on Sunday, and it has been a very long and bumpy night. We have been skirting the edge of Hurricane Phillipe since we left Portland yesterday afternoon, rocking and rolling like Elvis in his prime. We are still moving a lot, but not as much as last night. Walking down to Martinis, where I write in the mornings, I didn’t see any damage, but they do have fans out to dry carpets…which is interesting. The only thing we personally had happen in the night was the tongs falling off our ice bucket. It made a lot of noise, but that was about it. Happily, our stop today (Martha’s Vineyard) is supposed to be sunny and in the 60s. We shall see.

The Portland Observatory

Yesterday was the exact opposite weather-wise, as you can see from the photo above. So when we awakened in Portland, Maine, I looked out and thought that since our excursion had been canceled, maybe I would just stay in. It wasn’t really raining at that point, just a lot of wet fog. But after breakfast, I decided that as long as it wasn’t raining, I should go out and walk, if not for photos, at least for exercise. So I did. Kathleen decided to stay on board. Jocelyn had checked in that she was going to spend the day in her stateroom, and the other four were already off on a walk around the old port. So I was on my own. That’s OK, as I tend to walk much faster than anyone else because they like to stop and browse windows, but I like to search for photo subjects. When I had finished the day, I was truly surprised at what I had found, from some street photography pics to a few churches (I could not get inside to see the stained glass) to a wonderful tower—the Portland Observatory.  There, they let me pay them $8 to climb 104 steps and take pictures from the top. There were docents on every level doing a great job of telling the history of the Observatory and greater Portland. I took the photo at the start of this post from the top of the Observatory.

So here are my best pics of the day. If you had told me I would be getting this many that I liked on this walk, I would have said you were nuts. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

BTW: We had been here in Portland almost five years ago to the day on Celebrity Summit (before they went to the dark side), and it has been sunny, humid and ninety degrees, so to be honest, I prefer this weather.

The moment they pulled the pilot off the ship.

After we sailed (around 3:00 p.m.), I got the balance of the shots of the lighthouses and the pilot boat. I love shooting pilot boats. If you don’t cruise, in every port, the local officials send out pilots who are totally knowledgeable about their respective ports, and they take over from the ship’s captain while sailing into and out of a port. The most dangerous part of their work is that they have to come out on a tiny pilot boat and literally jump from the moving boat both on and later off the ship. It is a fantastic thing to watch. The pilot boat maneuvering to get close to the boat, the two pilot boat crewmen reaching out to grab the pilot, and his getting pulled on board and off the ship was a thrill to watch, but even though pilots are VERY well paid, that’s not the occupation for me ?.

See you tomorrow after Martha’s Vineyard…and yes, an hour later, we are still rocking and rolling but less like Elvis and more like The Beatles—a little softer.

I felt like I’d been misplaced in the cosmos and I belonged in Maine.  —Terry Goodkind