21 | October | 2013 | On the Go with John and Jessie

Daily Archives: October 21, 2013

21-Oct Star Flyer in Cadiz, Spain

Posted on October 21, 2013 | Leave a comment

[Edit 12-oct-14]

In the early morning of 21 Oct the Star Flyer tied up in the ancient port of Cadiz, Spain. Cadiz, it is said, is the site of the oldest continuous settlement in Europe, featuring a natural harbor on the Atlantic coast and well positioned for the sea-trade between northern Europe and the Mediterranean and later with the new world. Cadiz is the port from where Columbus departed for his 2nd & 4th voyages of discovery. It also is a perfectly situated for defense and has a fortress wall surrounding its island-like old city at the tip of a peninsula.

[today we are in Cadiz and we are doing a quick catchup using the verizon hotspot which is running at 3G not 4g.]

Since we last posted, we we did an excursion to Ronda, which has a huge gulch dividing the city and a famous bull ring, and to Granada for a tour of the fabulous Alhambra. Photos to come. These tours (one day each) were out of Malaga.

we then boarded the Star Flyer, a very nice 4-masted tall ship with 180 passengers and 80 crew. About 30 pf the passengers are on a cruise and will leave when we get to the Canary Islands. The rest of us will continue on the trans-Atlantic crossing to Barbados with a full solar eclipse in mid-Atlantic. The trans-Atlantic crossing was set up by Betchart Travel for the Planetary Society (Bill Nye, the science guy, an officer), American Association for the Advancement of Science, Sigma Xi (science honor society), American Chemical Society, and Cal Alumni Travel. it is an interesting collection of people. We have encountered several chemists so it is like old home week for me.