A view into the life of Jay, Christy, Luke and Ryan as we travel around the world! The original Orriscope was an editorial written by Jay's grandfather when he owned and edited the Grand Forks Gazette in British Columbia.
As always, China throws a long shadow. It was obvious we were approaching Shanghai by the change in the color of the ocean water. As Shanghai is near the terminal end of the Yangtze River, it wasn’t a surprise to see the water taking on a brownish tinge. It was more disconcerting to see the odd…
The first foreign port of our Semester at Sea voyage is behind us. Nineteen days after our departure from Encinitas, Mexico we arrived in Kobe, Japan. With a day in Hawaii and a day that didn’t exist due to the vagaries of crossing the International Date Line, we had 17 days at sea and will write about that nautical…
And we’re off. On January 3rd we said our goodbyes to our furry girls and made our way to the Denver airport. We had a carload of luggage, passports, tickets to San Diego and a Semester at Sea voyage ahead of us. We spent a couple of days in San Diego doing final prep and…
As the end of our 3rd Semester at Sea (SAS) voyage nears, we keep reflecting on the question of why we keep returning to this program. There are so many ways to see the world – so why SAS? The main reason we chose SAS is because of the tight community – on this voyage…
Way back in 2009 when the boys were just 5 and 6, we visited Morocco during Ramadan and spent our time in Casablanca and Marrakech. The scorching weather and lack of food and water from sunrise to sunset due to Ramadan meant everyone in the country was a little cranky and inserted a slightly distorted…
Once again, Ghana stands out as one of our most memorable ports – this time because of Fredrick Benneh Frimpong and our 4 day homestay in Senase village. Fred is a 25 year old Ghanaian from Senase and currently finishing his studies in the US. He flew back to Ghana from San Francisco just for…
After 5 nights and 4 full days of safari (and eating), we were ready to return to reality. We were tired of sitting in the safari jeeps and boats and just wanted to have our own schedule (when we did not need to get up at 5:30 a.m.) and get some exercise. Cape Town provided…
From Victoria Falls, it was an easy 2-3 hour drive to Chobe Game Preserve in Botswana. We stayed at Chobe Game Lodge, which boasted all female guides and is the only lodge inside the game park. Botswana prides itself on restricting the hours the park is open and the number of visitors allowed in the…
After a fun-filled day at Dubai’s Atlantis Water Park, we took an overnight flight from Dubai to Zimbabwe via Qatar and Johannesburg. Our flight took us 6,000 miles south and we went from frolicking in the water park one afternoon to cruising alongside hippos and crocodiles on the Zambezi River the next. With only 3…
After recharging our batteries, we found ourselves on our way to a brief two day stopover in Dubai. It was one of those “since we are going to be in the area, we should stop in” kind of trips. There are limited options to get from India to Africa where we were rejoining the ship…