#623 The Sea is Calling

We're off on another nautical adventure, but first we have to get ourselves to Hamburg.

For our trip, we're relying on Iceland Air to fly us from Dulles to Reykjavik to Hamburg, but wait.  Uh oh.  What's this?  Pilots Union: Biggest Travel Season in Danger.   An Iceland Air pilot's strike?  Lucky for us, we miss the strike by one day and fly just south of Greenland on the way to Reykjavik. and we land as scheduled in Hamburg.   

Now that we've completed the aeronautical leg of our journey, it's time to turn our attention to the nautical portion.  Hamburg, as we discovered last August, is about as nautical as it gets.

Today, we are lucky to witness the Queen Elizabeth 2 sailing up the Elbe River and pulling into a Blohm and Voss dry dock for its first overhaul since entering service in 2010.

The MV Explorer is also in dry dock at a Blohm and Voss shipyard (her birthplace) getting some routine maintenance, engine-, ventilation- and steel repairs (superstructure, tanks), fresh water sys, rudder, propeller, pipes, ventilation, deck improvements (new tiles and carpets in public spaces).  All this is according to http://www.shipcruise.org/cruise-ship-refurbishment-dry-dock-schedule/.

So the MV Explorer will be all ready for us when we board on Saturday.

Yours in anticipation,
Mary