After three busy days in South Georgia, the Silver Endeavour sailed for Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands, off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Elephant Island is where Ernest Shackleton’s crew was stranded on a bleak and inhospitable small beach while their captain and five others made a treacherous 17-day, 800-mile journey across...| Dirona Around the World
Departing the Falklands, we traveled 900nm over three nights to reach our first stop in South Georgia at Elsehul. Here we toured the area by tender, sighting a large rockhopper penguin rookery perched on the cliffs, and hundreds of baby and adult seals. Among them was a relatively rare blonde Leucistic fur seal. Not quite...| Dirona Around the World
The island of South Georgia lies about 870 miles off the Antarctic Peninsula and supports the largest King Penguin population in the world, exceeding a million during the breeding season. It also contains the grave of British explorer Ernest Shackleton, who in 1916 famously saved his entire crew after their ship, the Endurance, was trapped in…| Dirona Around the World
We crisscrossed the country this spring on business trips for James, spending time in Washington, DC; Orlando; Portland, Oregon; Los Angeles and New York. Jennifer has started tagging along on these trips, that we extend into the previous or following weekend. Partly this gives us more time together, but mostly we enjoy traveling and visiting…| Dirona Around the World
“Someone stole my necklace!” Jennifer exclaimed, as she felt her small gold chain being ripped off her neck from behind. We both turned to see a man running away through the crowd. “Is that him?” James asked. As he said that, two men tackled him to the ground. One man tried to grab the phone...| Dirona Around the World
Santiago, founded in 1541 by Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia, lies in a fertile valley flanked by the Andes and the Chilean Coastal Range. With a population of roughly 7 million, it is one of the largest cities in the Americas. 19th-century neoclassical buildings fill the downtown core, while several stand-alone hills offer sweeping views…| Dirona Around the World
The Darlington Nuclear Generating Station just outside Toronto has a capacity of 3,512 MW and generates about 20 percent of Ontario’s electricity needs, enough for roughly two million homes. The facility came online in 1990, and was in operation when we lived in Toronto between 1986 and 1997. Three of the four reactors are now...| Dirona Around the World
At the most recent AWS re:Invent conference, held annually in Las Vegas, Jennifer took her first ride in a self-driving car. Amazon subsidiary Zoox has been testing their purpose-built self-driving vehicles around Las Vegas since 2023, and is planning to deliver a commercial robotaxi service in Las Vegas and other major US centers. James has...| Dirona Around the World
In 2022, we took our first mega-ship cruise, aboard the Norwegian Encore to the Caribbean. We mostly were interested in the technology behind the ship, and had little interest in actually cruising aboard such a huge vessel. We were surprised how much we enjoyed the trip, particularly due to the Haven, Norwegian’s ship-within-a-ship concept. Haven…| Dirona Around the World
More than a century before the smoke-spewing copper smelter at Point Ruston influenced Tacoma-born Frank Herbert’s penning of his epic novel Dune, the area supported the first European trading post in the Puget Sound. About 15 miles to the south, the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1832 established Fort Nisqually, which became an important fur-trading post...| Dirona Around the World
The Amazon River is the largest river in the world by discharge volume and second longest in the world (after the Nile). Originating in Peru, the Amazon flows 4,000 miles (6,400 km) eastward drain into to the Atlantic Ocean in Brazil. The river has two seasons, high water and low water, with a 35-45-ft (10.6-13.8m)…| Dirona Around the World
