JGareri website - trips from 2010 and beyond

Trips from 2010 and beyond

South Pacific Voyage, December 2012 - May 2013

On December 5th, 2012 I officially rejoined the Picton Castle for the South Pacific Voyage. I had spent nearly 3 weeks with the ship when she was along side in Lunenburg Nova Scotia in September 2012, but did not stay with the ship at that time because of the wedding I went to in Spain.

Spanish Wedding and American Football in London, again, October 2013

On October 27th, I flew to London and was joined by my friend Jon for a trip to Spain.

Best of 2012 North Pole Trip

The Ship's GPS at 90º North

Helsinki and the North Pole, July 2012

On the 3rd of July I traveled to Helsinki Finland to meet up with some friends from Australia. We had met on the trip to Antarctica in 2010 and talked over the previous year about doing another trip. We settled on the North Pole, mostly because you could go there. More on the Pole later.

I spent 3 days in Helsinki with Geoff and Christine having a look around the city. One day we took a 2 hour ferry to Tallinn Estonia. We spent most of the day exploring the old town there. It was a great side trip from Helsinki and added another country to my collection.

We then met up with all the other people from our ship. Everyone was staying at the same hotel because early the next morning we boarded a charter flight to Murmansk Russia. There was about 150 people in this large group, so it got to be stressful at times.

When we arrived in Murmansk we were randomly put on busses for what became a tour of the city and lunch. It all kind of seemed unorganized but we went the flow. The day was cold and rainy, which is a typical day in Murmansk. My group was the last group to arrive at the ship, which ended up being a couple hours after everyone else! Once on board we got settled into our cabins. I had met my cabin mate, David, the night before at the hotel, but had not seen him all day. We all quickly set about exploring the ship and waiting for departure.

For the next two weeks we made our way north to the north pole. We traveled quite close to the islands of Frans Josef Land, which are part of Russia. On the way south we spent a few days there. It took us a couple of days before we reached the Arctic ice where we had a bit of a celebration on board.

A couple more days and were were approaching the pole. The goal of the trip was to get the ship at 90º North, and the captain did just that. The North Pole is all water and ice, which some people do not realize. There is nothing there since being water and ice, it is constantly moving. Our ship did reach the pole and we had a huge celebration. Attached here is a much longer write up of our time at the North Pole.

On our way south we made several stops at Franz Josef Land. Attached here is a detailed description of our time at Franz Josef Land.

2012 - Superbowl 46

Superbowl 46 - Indianapolis Indiana, February 2012

Another disappointing post season loss for the Patriots, again at the hands of the New York Giants. This time though, was not as bad since the team did not have an undefeated record going into the game. Ian and I traveled to Indiana and stayed at brother Charlie's house. Charlie, Jane, Ian and I went to Indianapolis the day before the game and had a wander around the Superbowl "village". The next day we all went to see the game. It was a great experience and a fun trip, aside from the score at the end of the game. I am very fortunate to have been to five Superbowl in the last eleven because of the season tickets that I have with the Patriots. We do have a winning record for those trips at 3-2, but another win would not be a problem.
Here are some pictures from the Superbowl trip.

Targa 2011

Newfoundland

Targa Newfoundland, September 2011

I took at trip with my good friends Jim and Laurie to Newfoundland with motor home. We boarded a ferry in Sydney, Nova Scotia and made an overnight ferry trip to the west coast of Newfoundland. We spent the next week exploring and seeing things along the way to St. John's on the east coast.

In St. Johns we meet up with Alan and the four of use volunteered for the road rally, Targa Newfoundland. We all worked on stage operations teams. Alan and I were on one team; Jim and Laurie were on another. There were 5 stage operations teams each consisting of 8-10 people responsible for various parts of the stage. Alan and I worked the flying finish for our team. We have a electronic beam that we set across the flying finish line. As the cars flew by the FF line we had to enter their car number into a computer terminal. This transmitted their time to the finish line where they stopped to see their time. It was very exciting and a lot of fun. Laurie ran the finish line for their crew. She had to record the car numbers as their came to her position and radio the numbers to the net controller radio person, who was Jim.

Below are some links to some pictures:

Best of Antarctica 2010

Buenos Ares, Ushuaia, Antarctica The Weddell Sea, and Santiago, November and December 2010

This was a major trip over a 5 1/2 week period. I flew from Boston to Buenos Ares, Argentina to spend a few days seeing the city. From there I had three hour flight to the southern most city in Argentina, Ushuaia. This is the place that most cruises to Antarctica start and/or end. I had three days there to explore the region before getting on a Russian Ice Breaker, the Kapitan Khlebnikov. The month long trip that I took was one of the last passenger trips for that ship.

We left Ushuaia and traveled across the Drake Passage just a few miles east of Cape Horn. The trip across the passage was about 48 hours long. The first 24 hours was quite calm, almost like crossing a lake. The second half of the passage was a much different story and one that was more expected. We have seas that were very high and winds to go with it. The ship would crash into the waves and water would be sent up so high that it soaked the windows on the bridge 10 decks above the water.

After crossing the drake passage we arrived at the Antarctica Peninsula and first glimpse of the frozen continent. We then spent the better part of three weeks crossing the Weddell Sea with two stops in Emperor Penguin colonies. Everyone got spectacular photographs as both days were sunny and beautiful.

We then headed back north and crossed the Antarctic Circle with stops in the South Sandwich Islands. The weather there was too rough to land so we just did cruising with the ship. From There we had three days in South Georgia with lots of shore landings. One landing was a the grave of Shackleton where we did a traditional toast.

The trip was winding down at this stage. We took a couple days to get to the Faulkland Islands where we left the icebreaker. The weather in Stanley was pretty terrible, unfortunately, I did not get any pictures.

It was then on a plane to Santiago Chile where I spent a few days before heading back home and winter.

I took thousands of pictures on the trip Here are some links:

A collection of some of my best pictures
Or you will find all of my photos here

2010 Sept Gloucester Whale Watch

Sightseeing in Boston and Gloucester with Jon, September 2010

My friend Jon from England came and visited for a couple of weeks. We did a lot of touristy things and had a really nice visit. I took a bunch of pictures, you can check them out with the links below:

Boston Super Duck Tour. Kind of like the old duck tours, but these amphibious vehicles are much better. They can actually go into Boston Harbor where the old tour can only do the Charles River.
Whale watching trip in Gloucester. Great day on the water, we saw several Right Whales, Sei Whales and Minkies.
Segway tour of Boston. This great fun and the second time I have done the Segway tour in Boston. A great activity to do with visitors from out of town.
Sailing with Ellen. Originally we were going to do an overnight to the Isle of Shoals, but the wind just would not cooperate.

2010 F1 Grand Prix Montreal

Montreal F1 Grand Prix, June 2010

This was a trip to see the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Montreal. This was the first year the race ran in Montreal after taking a year off. I traveled there with Laurie and Jim in their motor home. We meet up with Alan who drove himself from Maine. It was a short trip that was a lot of fun. While on that trip we all talked about making a trip to Newfoundland and volunteering at a road rally that is held there each fall, Targa Newfoundland.

Here are some pictures from the trip.

Anguilla 2010

Anguilla and Saba, March 2010

In March of 2010 I took a month long trip to Anguilla to visit a shipmate, Deb and her boyfriend Laurie. They had recently bought a sailboat, Tradition. I wanted to go there and help them out with the boat and spend the end of winter in someplace warm.

While there we did a lot of trips on Tradition and I also assisted them in getting a website started for the boat. Their intention is to use Tradition for day charter trips.

We also took an overnight sailing trip to the Island of Saba which is about 25 nm from Anguilla. We had a fantastic sail there and back. While on the island we meet Michael, the son of another shipmate, Gary. Michael was attending medical school on the island. We also took a tour f the island before sailing back to Anguilla.

Here are some pictures of Anguilla and the trip to Saba.

2010 Chicago

Chicago to visit Bruce August 2010

While visiting my brother and sister-in-law in Indiana it took a road trip to Chicago to visit a Picton Castle shipmate, Bruce. I spent a couple of nights with Bruce and we did things that he had never done in his lifetime of living there. We also meet up with some other shipmates that were passing through.

Here are some pictures from a Segway tour that Bruce and I took

John Gareri

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