A little late but love from Uruguay

Hey Guys,

so it has been a little while so appologies there =(
we have been super busy getting everyhting here running smoothly and of course having some fun too =)
so today and yesterday we have been in Uruguay..... yesterday in Punta DEl Esta... such a beautiful place, and such a safe feeling after so long in Brazil.......
Rio.... Brazil was just awesome =) we went all over and see all the sights, unfortunatly it was too cloudy to fully see the Jesus Christ thing but we can still say we saw it =)
I never knew that Rio was so BIG on prostitution..... wow!!! girls working everywhere, it was funny!!!
totaly oblivious I walked into a bar on the beach alone... Mark had gone to the tiolet, so I say down at a table and couldnt work out why all these old men were starring at me at talking about me so obviously... huh... then after 5 mins of waiting for Mark I realised what was happening... yes it was a pick up bar, I was soooo embarrased!!!

so know tommorow we leave for Buenos Aires for two days then onto the falklands and Antarctica!!!!

we are soooo much looking forward to the four weeks there... it will be just insane =)

well I do have work to do so chow for now =)

I miss you all so so much!!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL..................

love heapz..... x

Bal here are the long awaited Zulu pix .... xxx

on our way to St Helene Island

hi all, just a quckie to let yas know we're still here!! went to Namibia a couple of days ago, really cool place, didnt sse Brad and Ange but still was wonderful! mark went out to the desert so keep an eye out for those photos........ over all still having a blast.... we are quickly getting things into place onto the ship as to how we want it to run which is a good feeling after a very long handover period....

so whilst in Durban I was very fortunate enough to have spent a whole day at the famous Shaka Zulu Village, it absolutely blew my mind =) I got some insane photos.... ive been learning hard out to shoot with the long lense and finaly after the zulu village it looked like my efforts had paid off =) I will get Mark to add the pix very soon =)

Mark visited the valley of a thousand hills the same day which also just looked awesome, and as always he came back with beautiful photos!!!

so from Durban we went onto Cape town, wow what a beautiful place.... I can truely say other than Monaco is proberly the nicest city I have seen... georgeous place, great vibe, good food and yummy wine =)

we changed cabins a record breaking 7 times whilst we were there which didnt make me too happy but hey ho its all good now =)

so now onto St helena for the day and then to Rio de Janeiro for a wonderful three days... bring it on =)

well I miss you all so so much, I hope you are still reading the blog.....
please leave messages as we check all the time =)

BIG miss you kiss....... Z and M x

East Africa

Jambo!!! (hi, welcome in African), well I am sitting in my room quarantined for 24hrs. got a taste of a bug that’s onboard, oh well, it’s giving me the chance to catch up on this… so firstly Kenya!, we went on a safari, and as you can see we saw loads of wildlife in its environment, we have some awesome images and it was a totally mindblowing day, we had a 2.5 hr drive to the park from the port via a crazy main road, it was a moving day in a lot of respects as we went passed many villages and settlements and got to see the real Kenya. Next was Zanzibar, Tanzania. A cool place, people there are really nice, Zoe and I went out into the town and down some streets where no one would go, another great experience, it was very hot!. Then onto Comoro Island, we got a taxi to a beach, ended up way outa the way from anyone but local people and had a blast playing and swimming with 20 odd local kids, every day has been amazing, the type of days that are etched in your mind forever, you have so many experiences and feelings while in these places because of the poverty, but also because of the people you meet and how they are happy in their environment. Right now we are in madagasca, I am totally gutted I cannot get off the ship as I have wanted to see this place for a long long time, mainly to get an image of a Lemur, ahh well, I hope Zoe gets one!. Till next time ….

woohoo, outa quarantine :-)

safaga and at sea

Hi all,
So we’ve been very busy lately getting used to the ship and, as you can see, doing safety training. All this has to be done so that if anything happens we can save ourselves and the passengers we have onboard. There’s a lot in it, as we cover all ship safety equipment and how to use it, crowd management, how to evacuate, and how to use the supplies onboard the liferafts etc. Oh and basic medical. All good stuff to know onboard and on land. Apart from that things are going o.k, at the moment.. we are on our 5th day at sea out of 8. It is a looong time to be at sea!. We missed Jordan as it was too windy to pull into port which was a bit of a bum, and we are cruising with Egyptian water at the moment, which is probably pumped from the Nile at a guess. The water is like gold right now with 8 sea days in a row!. Not long and we’ll be in Mombasa, Kenya. Zoe has a cold right now, has hit her hard today, poor soul, she’s at the doc at the moment so hope she can get something to help with it. Well that’s about it for now, we’re looking forward to getting this sea journey over and seeing some awesome places again, Its all worth it in the end! ☺. Oh, yeah Ant, Cairo is mad!! Totally! We had full security there with oozies. Thought of you a bit there as I know a friend of yours has a diving biz there eh, or used to?. We were in safaga. beautiful afternoon light there!

Egypt!! woohoo :-)

Hi all, well we made it, 30 hrs travelling then onto our ship, least to say we were knackered!!. We spent the first day or 2 getting used to the ship, where our cabin, lab and shop is as well as everything else and doing our safety meetings, for those that don’t know safety is a big issue for us crew on board ships as we have to be ready for anything at anytime. K, so after 2 days our ship pulled into Port Said Egypt. We were able to go and photograph the tour which took us to a Mosque, Cairo, cruising up the river nile, and the Sphinx and Pyramids. I have to say it was probably one of the most mind blowing days I’ve ever had!. Zoe fulfilled her dream of riding a camel as you can see, she scored! Some people got charged $40 for a 5 min ride, hers was 5usd !! I think the boys liked her ☺. So we are in Jordon today then over night in Egypt tomorrow then we head off to Africa. We will be sailing through some of the most treacherous waters in the world for piracy, so we have a full ship of security at the moment, these guys are awesome, theyre either extreme servicemen from India or from the Philippine Police force, so yeah, we’re kinda feeling pretty safe right now ☺. Well got to go and get breakfast and get ready for work, etc. Gotta say beforte I go though, were really settling in on here well, this ship has the nicest crew I have ever come across while on ships, theres a good homely feel here which isn’t on all ships, looks like our time is going to be a good one ☺.

busy but exceptional week!!

So, we moved out of our flat in Takapuna on Thursday, Mum and Don brought a van up and we hired another one and took all our gear down to Taranaki for storage, we had to throw it into storage early on Friday morning and zoom back up to Auckland in time to drop our Van back off. Then drive our own car back down. A mish, but worth it!!. So we cruised along getting details finalized and getting things ready for our departure and thought we were all set to go until wednesday we got a stroke of luck!. As you all know Zoe is from U.K and has applied for residency in New Zealand, well we were told that what we have done so far has to be cancelled and she has to reapply when we come back next time, we were a bit let down but hey, what can ya do if those are the rules. So anyway, Zoe had to make a call to her residency case Manager and finalize the details, when she did he was like "hang on, I just signed those papers for you If you can come up here to Auckland we can get the stamp in your passport and you'll have your residency"!! WOOOHHOOOOO!!!!. So ... 2 days till fly out time and we take off in a mad dash for our old haunt Auckland once again. Alls well that ends well, we drove up and back the same day, and with a fresh new Kiwi in the passenger seat on the way back. Least to say we are stoked :-). Well thats it for now, 2 days until we fly the sky with Singapore Airlines :-)

Have a splendid day all !!

Packing

So we leave here(Auckland) next thursday and so are packing and getting things ready for our next adventure!. From then we stay in Taranaki with the family until we fly out from New Plymouth at 10.20am. Our next flight is from Auckland at 3.00 pm. We stop over in Singapore and after 22 hrs from leaving Auckland we land in Athens, Greece!. Then a Taxi to our awaiting ship :-). We will be meeting the old Manager Marcell on there who we both know from our first ship, Norwegian Star. Will keep yas up to date as we go, chow for now!

bbq

We had a bbq on saturday atfernoon/night with our neighbors. John is from Sth Africa and so we learnt loads about some of the places we are heading off to and got some good pointers. He cooks a mean Sth African bar-b!! hot coals and all, no gas here mate! Kayleigh is going to be Peaches' new mum, as you can see they get on very well. :-) Glad to know she's going to a good loving home. Hey Milly, where'd ya go? ;-)

NZ photos

some photos from NZ, us, Mt Egmont- Mark's local mountain, and Peaches our cat!

Mark & Zoe photo

so here we are, this is a photo of us :-) Right now we are closing down everything here in Auckland, New Zealand and are getting ready to embark on another cruise ship mission. Are we excited??- you betcha!!.