Papeete Moorea Bora Bora Huahine Rangiroa Hiva Oa Nuka Hiva Archipelago de las Perlas Balboa Panama Canal Cristobal San Blas Archipelago Cartagena Oranjestad Willemstad Jost van Dyke Tortola Virgin Gorda Gustavia St. Maarten Punta Delgado Lisbon (66 days in total)

Hi everybody,

This is my first blog message. The countdown for this trip started in April 2009, when I booked it, and now only 4 days at home, before the trip of a life time starts.

Previously I have done two weeks on the Royal Clipper in the Caribean, followed by the Athens to Phuket repositioning cruise on the Star Clipper. Then the first transatlantic crossing on the Flyer, followed by a week in the Caribean and several days at St. Maarten. The last time was the transatlantic crossing on the Flyer from Nice to St. Maarten.

Wednesday morning I will be flying from Amsterdam to London, London to Los Angeles, and finally, from Los Angeles to Papeete, Tahiti.

After a long flight (28.5 hours) I will be arriving in Papeete, Thursday February 11, at 06.30 am. Probably completely lost and not knowing what to do next.

My plan is to go to the hotel, check in, leave my luggage behind and go to the local supermarket to get some water and food, back to the hotel, change and lay by the pool, trying to stay awake and getting rid of the jet leg.

Saturday afternoon several passengers, whom I've "talked" to on the Cruise critic message board, are joining up for a 4x4 excursion, followed by drinks and dinner at the Roletto's in the harbour area.

Sunday afternoon is boarding time. From 16.00 pm you are welcome on board the Star Flyer. We are leaving for Moorea at 24.00 hours.

My intention is to keep my family and friends, and anybody else who is interested in my travelblog, informed. Hopefully I will be able to insert some pictures, but I first have to learn how to do this. Since I am away for 10 weeks, I treated myself to an e-reader. It took me almost two weeks to get to grips with how to download the e-books onto my e-reader. But... I managed. Thankfully the assistance from the web shop was terrific, otherwise I probably would have not succeeded.

At the moment I am collecting all the battery chargers, cables, memory sticks, and whatever you get when having an electronic piece of equipment, there are soo many cables etc. that my carry on is nearly full with that stuff.

Although I am allowed two suitcases and one carry on, I will try to stick to one suitcase. The reason is, that flying home from Lisbon, the airline (TAP) has very strict rules. I am only allowed one suitcase with a maximum weight of 20 kilos, for every kilo extra it will cost me € 20,= per kilo!

I have no idea if I will succeed, but at least I can give it a try. I even bought a scale, to make sure.

Tomorrow I have to do some research on how to insert images, prints etc.

 

Take care

Pralientje