VOYAGE to the SOUTH PACIFIC ... Amelia, where are you?

Rosemary and Bob are embarking on a South Pacific, Australia, and New Zealand “Grand Voyage” adventure. The Holland America Line flagship m/s AMSTERDAM will again, as she was in 2008, be our home away from home for 67 days. We will be departing from Seattle and picking up passengers in Vancouver and L.A. before setting sail south of the equator to the fabled isles of French Polynesia, calling at all those ports we used to visit only by watching “Adventures in Paradise” or through the exotic cocktail menus at Trader Vic’s; places like Papeete, Moorea, Bora Bora, Rarotonga, and Pago Pago. After that we head for eastern Australia to visit the Great Barrier Reef, spend three days in Sydney (G’day mate), and then go south to Melbourne and Tasmania. We’ll head across to New Zealand where we will do the entire country from south to north, calling at eight ports in as many days. Finally, the long trans-Pacific return crossing will culminate with stops at Samoa, Tonga, and Hawaii, before ending at Los Angeles.

As we've done before, an on-line travel journal has been created with text and pictures posted regularly. Our descriptive prose will furnish our impressions and views of the people we encounter and what we see along the way. This journal will serve as a lasting contemporary record of our adventure, written as much for us as for our friends and relatives. Narratives from Bob will be labeled “RBM”; the neat stuff from Rosemary will be labeled “RKM.”

Bali Ha’i will whisper ... In the wind of the sea:
“Here I am, your special island! ... Come to me, come to me!"