Wet sea-sprayed garments causes irritation and blistering when performing obsessive, compulsive tasks like rowing day and night across oceans. So Elin Haf Davies and her female row-mates, three blondes and a brunette, worked in the nude - weather permitting. One particularly wonderful day, somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the gals were all having a nice birthday suit swim when a cargo ship passed dangerously close. I visualize this scene whenever ...

Funchal was built on the side of a mountain/hill and it looks beautiful as your ship pulls into port. Once ashore we walked 1.5 - 2 miles, where we took a cable-car high above, to a little town that looks down on Funchal and the sea. There's a church at the top that may or may not have Charles I of Austria, the last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, entombed. Charles I died here, just a couple of years after being sent into exile. Anyway, Elenka and I ...

Lisbon is a nice city, I think. The areas of Alfama and Baixa are filled with cobble roadways where tiny trams make their way up and down hills and around tight street corners. There are castles and churches and cafes; not to mention beautiful views of the Tagus River. But back on the boat at the end of the day I was left kind of scratching my head. The deal with the Solstice folks is that they desperately want their passengers to sign up and go on expensive shor...

 We arrived in the Azores sometime in the early morning. When we got off the Solstice at around 8:00 a.m. Ponta Delgada, the capital of the Azores, on the island of Sao Miguel was like a ghost town. By nine a restaurant beside the cathedral opened and a couple of hours later, a few more stores opened their doors. The town is a dandy little spot with cobblestone streets that likely busies up during the week. There even seems to be a bit of a red light district. N...