Tuesday 3 April 2012

Cruising the Seven Seas

C  Cruising the seven seas  while ballroom dancing is how I plan to spend my vacations for the next while as long as my budget and body hold out. But the question is "what are the seven seas?" Strictly speaking what I really should be saying is "cruising the seven oceans or the hundreds of seas".
The seven oceans are the Arctic, the South and North Atlantic, the Indian, the South and North Pacific and the Southern oceans. But the use of the term the seven seas has differed through the centuries from the ancient European grouping (Adriatic, Arabian, Black, Caspian, Mediterranean, and Red seas and Persian Gulf) to modern usage  (Pacific, Atlantic, Indian and Arctic Ocean, and the Mediterranean, Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico).
So how am I doing? Right now on this trip from Hong Kong we transited the South China Sea on the way to Vietnam,  passed through the Gulf of Thailand on the way to Bangkok, and will head back through the South China see to Singapore. From there we pass through the Andaman Sea to visit the island of Phuket, then cruise the Bay of Bengal to Cochin in India, and finally go through the Arabian sea to arrive at Dubai. Right now we are anchored at the port of Phuket in the Andaman sea, and I am about to go ashore to explore the island.
For me, cruising is the ideal way to travel. You embark, unpack your stuff in your cabin, and then visit all sorts of places without having to pack and unpack your suitcase, and get into a plane or bus to the next destination.This trip I am on now is one of the segments of the Queen Mary 2 2012 World Voyage.
This world cruise takes 108 days from Southampton back to Southampton. It is not strictly speaking a world cruise as it doesn't quite circumnavigate the globe. It goes to the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal, to Asia, Australia, back across the India Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope, and returns to Southampton. So it misses out South America - a destination that is next on my list.
Although I cant imagine spending so long  away from home, at the moment there are at  least 350 people on board who are doing the whole Southampton to Southampton trip. I have actually met several, in the do-it-yourself laundry, and in other places on the ship. They all seem to be loving it. One couple have done four full world cruises. Wow.
What do you think? If money was no object, could you see yourself cruising around the world for four months straight?

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