Anderson South America Misadventure Day 17 – Anchored off Valparaiso, Chile “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” March 20, 2020

We woke up this morning to calm water because we were at anchor off the coast of Chile. After negotiations Valparaiso agreed to allow us to refuel and to restock. Sanantonio would have nothing to do with us. We were not allowed to come along side the dock. A refueling boat came out to take care of that. Watching them load the food was interesting. Usually when they load food onto the ship they use forklifts to bring entire pallets of food at one time. All of the food was being brought to the ship by little boats with cranes on them. They had everything on smaller pallets. I watched the try to load big boxes of fruit. I know that we have fresh oranges, bananas, mangoes, tomatoes and carrots. They would try to lift a pallet with this little crane and the boat would tilt so they would put the pallet down. At one point they were handing up big boxes of fruit one at a time. One person told me that they did see beer being loaded. This morning Rob wanted two blueberry pancakes but was told that he could only have one. The guy ahead of him got two but Rob got the last of the blueberries. Hopefully they got more. I am hoping that they got cottage cheese. Somehow that got left behind in Buenos Aires. Loading the food is supposed to take 24 hours. They finished the refueling and they rotated the ship so that they can now load the food on the alee side. They did switch from using the small boats to using a barge type boat. I did see one guy stand on a pallet to guide another one in. I could tell that it was huge cartons of ice cream and I knew that the lids would not support his weight. I was also wondering how long the ice cream had been out of refrigeration. Sure enough when he jumped off the lid went with him. I pointed this out to other people. We saw him then take off his glove to taste the ice cream. We all laughed. He looked confused. They are coming up with different activities to keep us occupied. Today they added a water exercise class. I thought that since I swim laps I would be fine. Oh, my she really gave us a workout. We will have it for two days then one day off then two days. It should worry me that they are planning that far out. Today when the captain spoke he did not mention anything about where they are trying to get us to disembark. Since California has closed down that lets San Diego out. A large portion of us are hoping for Ft. Lauderdale. So far no mention but if we keep moving north we keep getting closer to home. Sorry to my Aussie friends, I do realize that we are getting further away for you. Tonight we went to the stage show the cruise director updated us on the food being loaded on. They do not know for sure how long it will take but it appeared to be taking longer than they had planned. He did assure us that they would be getting all of the food which was plan A. Plan B was that even number state rooms would eat on even number days. That got a good laugh. Since we have not been into a port our entertainers have not left and new ones have not come on. Tonight the stage show was the piano bar guy who did a show with the Zaandam band. When he sat at the piano he asked if any entertainers came on with the food. Then he said “look, they are scraping the bottom of the barrel.” The crowd is pretty much in a good mood. Our future is uncertain, but we can laugh about it. I have to say that I am impressed with what they are doing to keep us healthy. Today we passed a state room that was being cleaned. The cabin attendant was washing the closet doors. Wow, that is really above and beyond. However Holland America keeps saying that they have not had one case of COVID-19 on any of their ships. I did ask if they were getting about 10 barrels of Purell with the resupply.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anderson South America Misadventure Day 27 - In the Caribbean "Plague Ship of the Caribbean" March 30, 2020

We spent a good portion of the night in our transit of the Panama Canal. They had really bright lights shining which I could see under our curtains. I would move the curtains because I wanted to see what was going on. The bright lights would hit Rob in the face, wake him up and he would yell at me. I could hear machinery going and people yelling and there were lights. So I would move the curtain again and Rob would yell again. It was a long night. Then I could feel the ship moving and I knew that we had cleared the canal. That was a big relief. When we hit the open water and the ship started to rock something started to make a knocking sound. Rob got up to figure it out. One of the bottles of wine that we got over a week ago was in the cabinet. Since Rob made me get rid of my water bottle raft supplies the wine bottle was banging around. See, he should have let me keep them. We had the alarm set to wake us up early so that we could do a live spot on Good Morning America. We got dresse...
Read more

Anderson South American Misadventure Day 20 - "Day Two of Confinement and We are Both Still Alive." March 23, 2020

We slept late this morning. I mean why would we get up early? We have nowhere to go. We got up and got ready for our day. We got a schedule of events for the day. Well, we got the schedule for the meals and for events that they would be showing on a channel of the TV. We get to play trivia twice a day. I have a shot that I need to take once a week. It is kept in the refrigerator in the Medical Center. On at sea days the Medical Center opens at 3:00. We were confined to our cabin at 2:15. I called the front desk to explain that I needed this shot, I take it every Sunday. No particular time but sometime on Sunday. By 10:00 I gave up on waiting for it. I called the front desk again at 9:00 this morning to ask for me shot. They transferred me to the Medical Center. The person who answered the phone had to ask what to do. They told him to just bring it to my door. He said that he would be here soon. OK, I am a day late but it is not a huge problem. I called Donna to find out when they got...
Read more

Message to Florida Officials March 30, 2020

To all of my Florida friends. Please use this script to contact your elected officials. We need to be able to disembark. There are sick people on this ship, they need proper medical care. Script for phone calls or emails to elected officials in Florida: As a resident of (city/Florida/the USA), I am (writing/calling) you to voice my support for the docking of the Holland America MS Zaandam in Fort Lauderdale later this week. The ship has over 300 American Citizens on board, none of whom have been on land since March 14, and they need our support now more than ever. Four people have lost their lives because countries along their route turned them away and denied them the medical care they desperately needed. One of those people is an American citizen. Now that the ship has crossed the Panama Canal, we need your help more than ever. We appeal to you to let our ship dock in Port Everglades. The healthy can undergo the necessary screenings and begin self-quarantine. The sick can have acce...
Read more