Maria’s dad used to say regarding home maintenance: “If the roof is OK and the furnace is OK, then you are OK.” I cannot disagree.
This year marks 40 years where we have had some sort of furnace/AC combination in our home. After a scorching 1983 summer and feeling the need to replace an ancient inefficient Olsen gas furnace, we were ready for it.
I think I can remember all the heating and cooling activity over the years, so let’s try.
1984 – DuoMatic-Olsen Ultramax furnace, Lennox single stage A/C.
What a gamechanger this was. The furnace was a high efficiency, condensing model – no chimney needed to exhaust hot gases. The Lennox did a great job of keeping us cool. Now the furnace did have some teething problems as this was cutting edge technology back then. The original metal venting motor got badly out of balance and we had to replace it with a plastic one that made the furnace much quieter.
We saved a ton of annual natural gas consumption with the combination lasting for 19 years.
The Lennox air conditioner was in poor condition by now so we decided to increase efficiency. Coleman is a York brand, and our installer recommended it. We certainly did enjoy our brief experience with it but unfortunately we moved in 2005, so I’d say we didn’t really get our money’s worth. However it was a major selling point when we wanted to go to Almonte. The unit was still in service when our old home sold again in 2011.
2005 – Concord Single Stage furnace, Concord single stage A/C
In many ways this was a step back in technology although we were getting a new system in a new home. Concord is a Lennox brand but is generally considered a “builder’s grade” system – a bit lower quality but OK for a new home where the insulation will be good. The picture above is that furnace.
The installer did a particularly good job and the system worked fine for many years – 19 in fact.
However- I was getting concerned about the A/C unit as it featured a noisy old fashioned compressor that needed a special kit to keep starting well. Then last fall the service person for the furnace told me that they had already condemned about 50 comparable units in town for cracked heat exchangers. I was lucky to get another winter out of it. So-
2024 – Tempstar Dual Stage Furnace, Tempstar Single Stage A/C
This just went in the last couple of days.
Tempstar is one of the many brands made by the Carrier company, and is a pretty good one. However we chose it because our current service company sells it, and we expected to get expert installation. (We certainly were not disappointed.)
It’s never a pleasure to shell out a big amount, but we have to keep ourselves comfortable and trouble free. I think this particular combination is a good one for a number of reasons:
We got to choose it ourselves.
A dual stage furnace is preferable here in the Valley, where we have some really cold winter days but a lot of the time we can run more efficiently at lower capacities.
We really don’t need a fancier A/C unit because a single stage can keep us cool in the short summers we have in Almonte. That said, the new A/C unit is way quieter and more efficient than our old one.
So hopefully we’ll be set for a few years. It’s early days but we are enjoying the quiet operation of the furnace.
I usually try to photograph the river and downtown Almonte during the spring runoff. This year was slightly different as I performed my photography with a 16 year old digital camera body and a 10 year old lens. By digital standards this is pretty vintage. Of course I am pretty vintage myself.
I have to admit that as far as photography goes, my technical requirements stalled out around 2012. The current mirrorless cameras are far better at low light shooting, fast action, selfies, video, dynamic range, and high ISO – but I am pretty much a good light, still image photographer. Besides I have a ton of 30 year old Nikon glass I still want to use.
The old camera bodies are cheap and some beautiful pieces are available for a slight premium price.
So off I went with my Nikon D90 and Tamron 18-200 lens.
After parking at the library, I headed down the Almonte Alameda (better known as the old CPR railway right of way.)
Crossing Bridge Street, I got a photo of the old Almonte Town Hall. Then I walked on to the CPR railroad bridge.
A view from the bridge. The water is coursing pretty well over the weir that holds back the flow into the power station.
The power plant can’t handle all the water either, so it dumps quite a bit back into the river.
The riverside Barley Mow pub isn’t quite ready yet for outdoor dining and drinking, but it was busy inside.
Moving on to the Riverwalk, I got closer to the water.
There was plenty of water coming over the mini-dam next to the old Thoburn mill building,
Looking back at the railroad bridge from the Riverwalk.
The riverwalk continues over to the main waterfall. Here you can see the pub, the power station and the bridge.
This past winter did not have as much snow as usual, so the spring runoff is quite a bit less abundant. It is still pretty impressive at the main waterfall though.
After a walk to the base of the falls, I could photograph the whole cataract at once. Later this year all this will be a trickle but it’s pretty neat right now.
Now finished with my water based photos, I headed back up Mill Street towards the Alameda. Lighting was pretty good to capture the old Post Office in the distance.
Back on the Alameda, here is the Storytellers’ bench.
Well, having wrapped up a brief photoshoot, I can make the following observations about taking photos with a vintage DSLR camera:
It’s quite a lot like using a film system. You have to take your time, fill the frame with your subject, watch where the light is coming from, and make sure you don’t have an extraneous telephone pole growing out of someone’s head. You really only get to review your work after you get home.
Although you don’t have nearly the megapixel image size of a brand new mirrorless, your images are fine for printing or posting on the web. Even looking at them on a 1080p computer monitor will be fine.
Nikon got digital color capture right the first time. Even a camera from 2008 will give lovely results.
A big heavy camera and telephoto lens are hardly discreet enough for stealthy street photography. In fact, someone carrying a camera is so rare these days that the average person will likely think you are some sort of professional photographer.
I hoped you enjoyed this old school photo session in historic Almonte. I’ll try to do another one next spring if possible.
As many who frequent Facebook already know, we have adopted a senior cat named Stanley.
We have been a rather quiet and lonely household since our beloved Mr. Oates passed away in November. For a while we weren’t sure if we’d have another feline pal. Then we thought we might wait until after the summer to look around for one. Then a simple twist of fate intervened.
I saw a post about Stanley on a local cat adoption site. Stanley had been a rescue cat of the site owner many years ago. He was now 9 – just a couple of months younger than Oates was.
Stanley’s original owner was an older man who had to move into a nursing home. So Stan lost his home and family. The man’s brother tried to take Stanley in, but they had a couple of female cats who didn’t get along with him. Stanley had to go into a foster care based cat rescue agency.
He was being fostered by a remarkable couple in Portland – about an hour’s drive south of Almonte. So we went down there to meet him.
We were impressed by Stan’s friendly and kind demeanor and it looked like he would be a great fit for us. Older cats have very limited adoption options, so he probably needed us as much as we wanted to take him.
After we filled out the adoption forms and paid Stan’s adoption fees, he had to go to Ottawa for a microchip procedure and then we picked him up and he had to endure a 45 minute drive back to Almonte, confined in a carrier. So we didn’t have a really great start to our relationship.
It didn’t take Stanley long to get comfortable though. He was eating and drinking heartily within a few hours, and he’s been sleeping with us every night he’s been here.
He’s a big cat, with big feet, but he walks around silently, like our old cat Sammy (1999-2015) did. He has a nice friendly purr and is very talkative, especially at mealtime.
He enjoys the sunshine coming in through the sliding door in our family room, but he isn’t a cat tree sort of guy. He likes to look out from a lower vantage point, and for his naps he heads under the bed where it’s quiet.
He’s playful for an older cat and loves chasing a wand toy around the house when he awakes from his naps.
All in all, Stanley is a great companion for us in our dotage. Two old crocks and an old cat. Perfect. We hope we all can enjoy life for a while yet.
It is now over 60 years since I first got interested in photography and started taking pointers from my Uncle Howard.
I suppose for simplicity I can break up the time periods into ages of activity:
1960-1970 – The Paleolithic Age
Equipment: Ansco Cadet pocket camera system.
Media: Mostly slides – 127 paper backed film
Mercifully not much of this era has survived. Aside from bad quality, the subject matter is dismal. Most of what is left are a few digitized slides from my last year at Queen’s.
1970-1982 – The Stone Age
Shortly after I started my career with General Foods, I bought my first “serious” camera.
Equipment: Yashica Electro M5 rangefinder.
Media: 35mm Slide Film
This camera was in service during the time I met Maria, and documented our early life and times together. It was also used for the first pictures I took of Sarah. It went to Switzerland with me on my first overseas journey.
The Yashica was a Jeckyll-Hyde sort of device. With good light it was quite capable of decent imagery; in poor light or with flash it was a toss-up whether you’d get a decent picture or not. The above is from the fall of 1971 at Maria’s aunt’s home in Buffalo NY.
This one is of Capilano Canyon in Vancouver in 1973.
Sarah at our new home in Georgetown in 1979.
Monte Rosa Switzerland 1981.
1983-2001 The Bronze Age
In 1983 I had my chance to buy my first SLR camera. This has led to an over 40 year relationship with Nikon.
Equipment : Nikon FE manual focus SLR. Various 3rd party lenses.
Media: Until 1985, 35mm slide film. After 1985, 35mm print film.
At the time I got the Nikon FE (used) I was not able to afford a bunch of Nikon branded manual focus lenses. I did get some 3rd party zooms at reasonable prices. These tended to be slow and bad in low light, so I had problems even with faster film.
I did get some decent images though.
Sarah at the Toronto Zoo, 1984.
In Philadelphia, 1985.
Enjoying the swimming pool in Georgetown, 1985.
First day of school in I believe 1985.
At Gettysburg, 1985.
Starting in 1987, we took a March break holiday every year as well as some fly and drive summer holidays. Most of these holidays were documented in photo albums which we keep to this day. The pics have not been digitized and it would be a huge effort to do so. Nevertheless the FE and its lenses saw lots of use between 1987 and 2000.
As an example I scanned a few images from our trip to Texas at March Break 1989. Here is Sarah at Rosita’s bridge on the San Antonio Riverwalk.
A view of the Riverwalk itself.
And here is La Villita marketplace near the Riverwalk.
2002-2007 The Golden Age
Equipment: Nikon F80 film camera.
Film: Mostly Fuji 400 print film.
By 2001 I was growing increasingly frustrated with the Nikon FE. My eyesight was failing and I could no longer focus the camera correctly. Many of my images turned out blurry.
To correct matters I invested in a new Nikon F80 film camera and a couple of Nikon zooms. Later I added a few second hand Nikon primes and zooms to the mix.
The resulting kit was the last hurrah for 35mm film and in fact its golden age. The camera was a joy to use. It had automatic film loading and advance. The lenses were autofocus so I didn’t have to worry about blurry shots. There was even a corrective control on the viewfinder to account for my failing vision.
By now computer tech had advanced enough that I could scan and digitize and store photos. So I started to dip my toe into the digital pool.
The first time I actually used the new system was in 2002 when we took a March break trip to Belgium. Here are some of the scans from that holiday.
The Grand Place in the baroque heart of Brussels.
Leopold Park in the neoclassical European Quarter of Brussels.
The main square in Bruges.
Beautiful Bruges canals.
The Cloth Hall in Ypres. Destroyed in World War I, it took 50 years to rebuild.
The last time I took a complete film kit with all the lenses was on our first cruise holiday in 2006.
Here are some of the scans from that trip.
Field of Mars, St. Petersburg.
Fortress of St Peter and Paul, St. Petersburg.
Peterhof palace, outside St. Petersburg.
Celebrity Constellation in Tallinn, Estonia.
City street in old Tallinn.
Nyhavn, Copenhagen Denmark.
After our retirement in 2005 we did a fair bit of travel – most of it involving flights and cruise ships. It became increasingly difficult to take a full-fledged film kit along.
Rasons for this were many:
Changes to airline boarding security made it difficult to take a lot of additional baggage – such as a film camera and interchangeable lenses.
Film was increasingly subject to X-ray scrutiny. Although I never had a problem there was always the possibility that your film would be fogged or destroyed.
Longer holidays meant taking more film along, or trying to buy it in foreign countries.
The whole kit was getting heavier and harder to take along – I wasn’t getting any younger either.
I was ready for a transition to digital – but not to a digital SLR.
2007-2015 The Transition Age
Travel photography after 2006 became almost exclusively a digital exercise. I owned a series of point and shoot (compact) digital cameras over the years. This was a time of rapid development in digital photography and the early DSLR cameras were a bit primitive. They had problems with dust getting on their sensors and I didn’t want to be cleaning a delicate sensor all the time. So I stuck to compacts by and large.
Equipment: Some cameras I owned during this time were, with the number of Megapixels in each photo:
Canon Powershot A60 (2MP)
Nikon Coolpix E5000 (5MP)
Fuji FinePix S6000fd long zoom bridge camera (6.1MP)
Fuji FinePix F480 compact camera (8MP)
Canon Powershot S90 compact camera (10MP)
Media was of course whatever digital sensor came with them. They were all CCD sensors.
I’ll show a photo taken with each of these cameras.
Beaver Valley Ontario 2003 (Canon A60)
Old Montreal 2006 (Nikon E5000)
Oia, Santorini 2007 (Fuji S6000fd)
Vlaardingen NL 2009 (Fuji F480)
Bora Bora French Polynesia 2015 (Canon S90)
By 2015 my transition to digital was complete. I thought I might dabble in digital SLRs again at that point.
2015-2024 – The Large and Small Age
Equipment: Nikon D5500DSLR and lenses
Panasonic Lumix ZS50 Travel Zoom
Media CMOS sensors.
In 2015 I once again purchased a digital SLR and some modern Nikon autofocus lenses. I didn’t intend to take this system on any of our travels though. For that I got my current travel superzoom pocket camera – a Panasonix Lumix ZS50.
Here is Almonte ON in 2019. Taken with a Nikon D5500 DSLR with a legacy Nikkor 35mm autofocus film lens from the 1990s.
And here is Rome 2019 taken with the Lumix ZS50 travel zoom.
That brings me up to date – almost. I’ll end with a pic taken from our latest Caribbean cruise.
Amber Cove, Puerto Plata DR – Feb 2024. Lumix ZS50.
So while there has been a sea change in my photographic equipment and media over the years, a few things have remained the same.
I stick to static image photography. I have never been a fan of video and movie making.
Photography for me has to tell some sort of story or document events or travels.
I do my photography in color. I know black and white has its nostalgic appeal but I leave that to those before me who were taking pictures in the 1920s, not the 2020s.
As for the future – well as long as I am able, I’ll continue to use the camera tools I have. Most folks by now have put dedicated cameras away in favor of a smartphone. I doubt I’ll ever do that, although in very low light a smartphone camera may work wonders with its computational photography.
San Juan PR by night. Pixel 7 Smartphone image.
This has been an ambitious blog post – to cover a lifetime of photos – and I hope you stuck with me. Photojournalits used to end their stories with a -30- so I’ll do that now.
Our last day at sea started out partly cloudy and calm. Just as well, as we had to get packing and it is no fun to look into a suitcase while the ship is rolling and pitching.
It got a bit rougher as we approached the Bahamas, but still OK for packing.
We caught sight of land as we cruised through the Bahamas.
We encountered a cold front with showers on our way. This was actually a good thing as it would drop the heat and humidity in Florida.
Our final picture at sea. Things were clearing up as the sun went down.
Here we are pulling back into Fort Lauderdale at 5:30 AM. Another Smartphone image.
It had been a great cruise but now it was time to say goodbye to Reflection and her crew.
We had an easy debarcation, took a cab to the hotel and stored our luggage.
It was sunny and cool in Ft.Lauderdale so we went shopping while waiting for our room to be ready. This nice tree was near the Ross store.
It wasn’t long until we were settled into our hotel for another couple of nights. It was a pleasure not to have to rush to the airport.
A pleasant evening was in store in Fort Lauderdale. The locals found it unseasonably cool, but we enjoyed it.
We found it comforting to spend a couple of days in a familiar place. We were up early to enjoy the hotel breakfast. Then we did a bit more shopping and after that we just kicked back at the hotel pool.
There were some lovely flowers in bloom that I had missed photographing last time.
Not to mention these colorful guys.
Maria liked relaxing after a busy week at sea.
After the craziness of a port day Friday, the hotel was quiet on the Tuesday. No cruise ships in port makes things much simpler.
Not too much time left in the tropical climate.
We enjoyed our restful Monday at the hotel and then got up Tuesday and took a shuttle to the airport.
Our flight went smoothly enough and we arrived on time in Montreal. We got through customs, picked up our luggage, went to the car park to get our car and then had the approximately three hour drive home. We were back in Almonte around 8:30 PM after a brief stop on the way for coffee and fuel. A long day but it went well.
That concludes our travel story for now. Hope you enjoyed being with us.
Another warm sunny day dawned with calm seas as we made our way to our final port stop in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.
The coastline was in sight all the way into Amber Cove Cruise Terminal.
Getting closer now. You can see patches of seaweed in the shallower water.
Might as well relax on the balcony until we are moored at the pier.
We’ve picked up the pilot now and we’ll be entering the harbor.
There’s the cathedral in the city of Puerto Plata.
Looks like we’ll be sharing the pier with another Norwegian heavyweight. This one’s the Getaway, which has sailed down from Cape Liberty.
The captain turned the ship in the outer harbor, and backed us into the pier.
We got a nice view of the Dominican coastline as we made our way in.
Once off the ship we got a view of the Reflection at our last point of call.
We walked down the dock and immediately entered the Amber Cove port facilities. Very nice.
Lots of these colorful fellows were hanging around.
These two were as tame as a pair of domestic felines. About as obedient too. You could get a selfie with them if you wanted to.
It didn’t feel very much like Christmas, but I suppose we could pretend.
In addition to bars and shops and restaurants, the port facility had lots of stuff for a family day.
Here’s a nice swimming area which was free for passengers to use.
We were not very far from the ships at all.
Then there was the lazy river for swimming and tubing.
Here’s another view of the lazy river.
The complex at Amber Cove is called Taino Bay. It’s very family oriented. We just stayed in the complex this time. Maybe if we come back, we’ll take a ship’s tour and see more of Puerto Plata.
Back aboard we saw a bulk carrier departing for Quebec City. I don’t know what she will pick up there, but I suspect grain of some sort.
That concludes our day in Taino Bay, Puerto Plata. We have one last day at sea and then back to Fort Lauderdale,
Our 4th port of call was Road Town in the British Virgin Islands. We had not been there before so we really didn’t know what to expect. The port looked very nice as we sailed in.
We passed through the port facilities and headed up the road towards the downtown. There is a familiar sign. Apparently the BVI is a big offshore banking center. Canadian banks have a presence there.
The skies looked ominous. Were we in for another drenching like yesterday?
The downtown was supposed to be close by the cruise terminal so we pressed on.
Suddenly the skies opened up and rain came down in buckets. Fortunately we found ourselves right in front of the Bamboushay pub so we ducked in.
It was a little early for serious drinking, so we shared a diet Coke and waited for the rain to subside.
The Bamboushay was a pleasant enough spot to wait out the rain. We got directions to downtown from the bartender.
There wasn’t a lot of commercial activity in Road Town that we could see though. It appears a bit undeveloped as a cruise port. There were business and government offices but not a lot for serious shoppers.
The rain showers were over so we spent a bit of time walking around Road Town.
Looks like you wouldn’t be thirsty if you lived here. Plenty of pubs to choose from.
We figured our best bet for souvenirs would be in the port complex, so after our tour of downtown we headed back. The giant Norwegian Encore was berthed beside us.
A nice lady was kind enough to take a photo for us.
Here’s the Encore – 170,000 tons, 5000 passengers. She sails from Miami.
We were about 40,000 tons smaller and 1000 less guests aboard.
Here are a few pictures taken from our deck 15. You can see the NCL ship is much larger.
They have all the bells and whistles to keep the kids happy.
Norwegian Encore must have 18 decks at least, She really towered over us.
This shows the port area with downtown in the background. The weather was much nicer in the afternoon but we were leaving early to sail to the Dominican.
We kicked back on our balcony and enjoyed the view. We were not obstructed by the big ship beside us.
Lots of ferries passed by. They had been taking folks to the beaches or other close by islands.
Road town has a commercial container port so there are lots of these local tramp frieghters around.
Heading out now from Road Town. We passed an oil or natural gas tanker as we sailed away.
The pilot boat was ready to pick up our pilot as we reached the open sea.
Lots of steep hills on land. I don’t think anyone would be driving fast on Tortola.
The pilot on his way back to Road Town harbor.
We had now reached the west end of Tortola island, on our way to Amber Cove, DR.
So long Tortola! We’ll pick up our narrative in the Dominican tomorrow.
The sunny weather we had been experiencing so far changed a bit as we made our way into Philipsburg, Sint Maarten.
We could see a few clouds coming over the hills as we approached the pier.
It was shaping up to be a busy port day in Sint Maarten. 4 ships were scheduled to make a call. P&O Britannia had already docked as we came in.
We anticipated a few showers, but as our stateroom attendant wisely said: “They have showers and sun in the Tropics, so you can have rainbows.”
As we headed into the pier, an old friend was following us into Philipsburg. We would recognize her anywhere.
Marella Voyager is the former Celebrity Mercury. We have cruised aboard Mercury to Alaska and the Bahamas and made many friends aboard her. Sarah and Dave cruised from Australia to New Zealand aboard Mercury. It was good to see her again.
We left the Reflection and headed downtown. It began to rain lightly – just enough to dampen you, not soak you completely.
Eventually we stopped on the porch of a restaurant until the rain stopped.
Near the restaurant. Not much rain coming down, but there were pudddles everywhere.
It’s easier to walk along the waterfront now as the town has installed a stone walkway. Before you were walking on sand.
Eventually we made our way to Main Street and up one of the side alleys to Back Street.
Nice old hot rod. I did not sit on it as requested.
Back Street was in pretty poor shape when we were here in 2018. It’s still not 100% but it’s a lot better than it was.
The Courthouse is looking pretty good now.
The souvenir shops are a bit cheaper on Back Street and the shopkeepers were friendly.
Shopping right next door to Ray’s Jewelry.
I didn’t go in though. I have enough watches at home to last a lifetime .
Back on Main Street we passed the little chapel we remembered from a previous visit.
The rain was picking up again so we hung out in the foyer of yet another souvenir shop until it slackened.
On our way back now. A good view of the cruise ships in port – Carnival. P&O, Marella, Celebrity.
Back aboard, this was the view from our balcony. Lots of maritime action.
Looks like the folks on the former Mercury are enjoying themselves.
Things brightened up in the afternoon, but we were happy to be back aboard. At least we did get to see a rainbow. Off to Tortola tomorrow.
Our 4th day on the cruise dawned warm and sunny with the calm seas we had become so used to. We were already on our way into Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas.
This might be the place to mention a couple of crazy coincidences we experienced on the cruise.
I mentioned earlier that we were stuck with Celebrity Select Dining. Instead of changing to early Traditional Dining the first day, we decided to give it a try. On the second night we had to wait with a pager, then the wait staff took us down to the Traditional dining area anyway.
We were seated next to Tom and Debra. Weasked where they were from: “Ontario,Canada.”
So we told them we lived in Almonte. They knew where that was. Deb had lived in Ottawa for a while.
They told us they lived in a small town between Belleville and Kingston called Deseronto. I told them I grew up there. We knew a whole bunch of people in common. I went to high school with one of her best friends.
We tried to get the table next to Tom and Deb for the rest of the cruise but the Maitre d’ told us it was booked. However he was able to reserve another table for us in Traditional Early Dining.
When we eventually got to this table we met Catherine and Judd from York, SC. However Catherine was also born in Canada. Turns out she went to Queen’s University (so did we.) She even lived on Earl Street in Kingston – where Maria grew up. Crazy coincidences to be sure.
Back to St. Thomas. We were soon on our way into the town of Charlotte Amalie.
We docked at the Crown Bay Pier and since we were a 30 minute walk from Downtown and not in a particularly scenic area, we took a truck taxi downtown with 12 or so other cruisers.
Where we got off the taxi we soon met some of the local residents. No feral cats to be seen but St. Thomas does have feral chickens.
Lots of nice flowers around as well.
St. Thomas is a former Danish territory now owned by the USA. Dronningens Gade means Queen St. in Danish but nowadays it also goes by Main Street. St. Thomas is a shopping Mecca for the Americans because they get quite a nice duty free allowance if they buy stuff here. The main drag is crowded with watch and jewelry shops.
Another view of Dronningens Gade. That is about as much Danish as we saw here.
We remembered these cool alleyways off the Main Street which contained a variety of shops and restaurants. You won’t miss any souvenirs in St. Thomas. Won’t go hungry either.
This is one of the nicer side streets.
Nice little fountain at the other end of the Riise Mall.
Another pretty side street. I think we picked up our souvenirs near here.
It was getting hot and humid and we had our souvenirs, so we grabbed another taxi back to Crown Bay. The driver kindly took just the two of us – he didn’t try to get other passengers to share. On the way back he regaled us with stories of how expensive it was to live in St. Thomas. I guess tourism can be a mixed blessing for these folks.
Another coincidence – we were in port with an old friend. Adventure of the Seas was the ship we cruised on in 2022 when we visited the East Coast of the US and Canada. Nice to see her again.
Adventure of the Seas is about 20 years old now but she is looking great. Another classic cruise ship.
We were glad to be back on board as it was pretty warm and the port load in St. Thomas was about to increase by a fair amount.
Although the ship was docked in a rather industrial area the view from our side was pretty nice. So ended our port day in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas. See you tomorrow in Sint Maarten!
The first indication we were getting close to old San Juan harbor was the appearance of the pilot boat.
Soon the skyline of the old city was in sight. The sea was a bit choppy as we moved into shallower water near the port.
Soon we were passing Morro Castle, which has guarded the entrance to San Juan Harbor since the 1600s.
Here’s a close-up view of the fortifications as we sailed by.
We were going to share the pier with Celebrity Apex which had left Fort Lauderdale just before us on Saturday.
The Coast Guard has taken over from Morro Castle these days – just as the US has taken over from the Spanish Empire.
We had a couple of hours to tour Old San Juan before it got dark. After our tour we were scheduled to have dinner in the Tuscan Grill, so we didn’t waste any time. We got off the ship and headed straight for the Christopher Columbus statue in Plaza Colon.
Just down the road from Chris, we saw another road leading up to Fort San Cristobal, which guarded San Juan from a land invasion back in the day. It’s even bigger than Morro Castle.
Here’s another view of the Fortress San Cristobal. One good thing about a late afternoon tour is that the light was really great for photography.
The light was good for people and flower photography too. Maria had her sunglasses on so she wasn’t squinting into the late afternoon sunlight.
We headed back through Plaza Colon past Chris’s statue and went over to Calle Fortaleza to do a little souvenit shopping.
With two ships in port Calle Fortaleza was getting busy but we were only looking for a souvenir magnet or two, so we were OK.
There were plenty of places to choose from.
We finished our shopping and headed back past the Post Office to the Waterfront.
Here we see the two Celebrities side by side in San Juan. This might be a good time to have a rant and contrast the old classic Celebrity vibe with the new glitzy one. The older Reflection has the wonderful Solstice class lines while the Apex is – dare I say – butt ugly.
Many other “features’ on the Apex guarantee I’ll never likely sail on her and her sisters.
First of all most of the “Infinite Balconies” on Apex are not balconies at all. You get a little extra room inside your cabin with a window that you can lower down – if the Captain hasn’t locked it in place. When you do lower your window, the A/C or heat cuts off in your cabin so you get hot and humid in the tropics or freeze in Alaska. Our stateroom attendant told us they were having glitches with the A/C system restarting after you closed your window. Gross.
Second, unless you are in a suite you cannot go up to the bow of the ship at all. There is much more of a segregation of passengers on the Apex class. The stern of the ship has a beautiful area called Eden, but I still don’t like the restrictions that confine the lower class guests to that area.
Combine those negatives with the tugboat like appearance and I’ll pass on the Edge class ships thank you.
When push comes to shove, I prefer the old school classic looks of the Solstice class ships. Hopefully they’ll be around for a long time to come.
Probably a little bit touristic but how could we resist?
It was getting dark and we needed to get back onboard for dinner, but we had one final opportunity for Maria to photobomb a flowerbed.
After dining at the Tuscan Grill and watching the sunset we went up to deck 15 to get a final shot of the Apex before she sailed away. We would not see her again on this cruise.
I’ll conclude this post with a couple of images taken with my Pixel 7 Smartphone camera. Normally I hate Smartphone photography. There’s no real telephoto capability, it’s like taking photos with a bar of soap, and my fat fingers get in the way of the lens.
However, there are times when the computational photography of a Smartphone will enable you to get a picture when a conventional camera will fail due to low light. I may have been able to take this shot with my Lumix but it might have been shaky. The Pixel 7 handled it well.
I know for sure this San Juan night photo could not have been recorded at all without a tripod for a conventional camera. The Pixel 7 did a pretty good job though. It’s not the equipment you use; it’s the pictures you get.
So ended our trip to San Juan as we slipped our moorings and sailed away into the night. Our next stop will be St. Thomas – tomorrow.
