There's a cruise ship quarantined off the coast of Yokohama, Japan due to a Coronavirus outbreak onboard. With the exception of China, the ship has more cases than any country on earth, clocking in at 175 people infected. The worry is that with so many people living in such close proximity that the virus will continue to spread. If that's the case, the bulk of the passengers may end up with the disease despite all efforts to keep it contained.

As a result, cruiselines are taking drastic measures to avoid this situation from happening on their ships. Most of them are canceling or rerouting cruises to China and other Asian countries. Some of them are denying passage to any customers with a Chinese, Hong Kong, or Macau passport. Anybody having visited those countries within 30 days, regardless of citizenship, will also be denied passage.

Needless to say, many passengers are canceling their cruising plans regardless of destination because they are worried a carrier of the Coronavirus will end up onboard.

The media, always hungry to stoke people's fears because fear is good for their business model, are all too happy to keep feeding the fire.

Not a good time to be a cruise company.

I've never been a big "cruising" person, but my mom absolutely loved it. She loved being able to go to lots of places on a single vacation. She really loved being able to go to so many different places without having to pack and unpack each time. So we ended up going on a number of cruises, including The Caribbean (twice), Alaska, The Mediterranean (twice), and The Panama Canal. They were all great, we had a fantastic time, and I am grateful to have found travel which was low-stress for my mom since that was all that really mattered...

Mom aboard the Dawn Princess in the Caribbean in 2004

Mom aboard the Norwegeian Jewel in the Mediterranean in 2007

Mom aboard the Norwegian Pearl in Alaska in 2009

Mom aboard the Disney Magic in the Mediterranean in 2010

Mom aboard the Island Princess in the Panama Canal in 2012

And, let me tell you, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. people found out we were going on a cruise there was at least one of them telling us "I would never go on one of those because it's too easy to get sick when you're trapped with so many people on a cruise." Which may be true, but neither me nor my mom ever got sick. Not even so much as a cold on any of the half-dozen voyages we were on.

Meanwhile I've gotten sick after flying on planes, staying in hotels, or attending events where people were sick. I've also been run down by a van in the South of France, hit by a taxi in Chicago, and been run over by a cyclist in Salt Lake City. As if that weren't enough, I've been held up at knife-point in Seattle and at gun-point in San Francisco. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I've gotten injured and had many other problems... all while not traveling on cruise ships.

So...

Would I cruise again? Of course I would. There are pitfalls, sure... especially in China and especially now. But there are pitfalls in any method of travel. And the positives for cruise travel are really too good to ignore. Even if you're not a big "cruising" person like me.

While I am not much a "cruising" person, I am an amateur woodworker.

And nothing quite tests your resolve as a woodworker than having no budget to build something. I drew up a plan for a gift shop's children's book display and calculated the materials would cost $48 to build. I only had $10-$12 to spend. So instead of actual boards, I scrounged around Home Depot for the cheapest possible lumber. They had warped thin boards for cheap, so I bought $12 worth and just spaced them out as far as I could to hold exactly what was required securely...

It was a strange project. I didn't have the material to use pretty miter joints everywhere, so I used them only in the places they would show, then used butt joints everywhere else. ALL of the boards are curved. I just nailed and glued them into place, straightening as best I could as I went. Worked great, and I had a whopping 3-1/2 inches of board left when I was through!

Whew.

Wah!

The last day of a cruise is usually a "Sea Day" so that everybody can pack their suitcases, settle their onboard account, arrange their disembarkation transportation, and have one last chance to stuff their faces with all the food they can get their hands on.

For me, 10-14 days is about the right length for a cruise. Any shorter and you barely have time to unpack, get used to the ship, and start relaxing. Any longer and you start to go insane over the idea of being trapped on a boat one more day. And that's where I'm at right now. I see these cruise itineraries of 30 and 45 days (and up!) and just don't know how people do it. Maybe if I had a larger cabin with a shower that was bigger than a bread box I'd feel different, but I doubt it. And so I've started to mentally prepare myself for dealing with the reality of post-cruise life. And when you've been living in an "unreality" bubble for ten days, that's not an easy thing to do.

For anybody who is interested in all the gory details, I've put the particulars of my Panama Canal cruise onboard Island Princess in an extended entry.

30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Favorite Plant...

I love tomato plants because tomato plants give us tomatoes and tomatoes give us pizza sauce.

Hello from the land of rum and pirates.

As a Hard Rock fan, Grand Cayman has been on my list of places to visit for a long time. I almost visited years ago, but a hurricane in the area changed my travel plans.

But here I am at last.

I wasn't going to do the whole "excursion thing" so I could just bum around George Town and hit the beach, but my face is still burnt to a cinder, so I thought "What the hell?"

Which is ironic, because the first stop was... literally... Hell. Hell, Grand Cayman...

I wouldn't have expected it, but there are chickens in hell. Chickens who like eating coconuts...

And here's a shot of Seven Mile Beach taken from the bus window. Sigh. If not for faulty sun-screen and a massive burn on my face...

Then it was time for a turtle farm. The idea is to preserve and protect the species, but the poor turtles looked incredibly bored swimming around in circles within their small, crowded tanks. I felt pretty sorry for them, as it didn't look like much of a life...

There were also other critters wandering around the place...

After the tour dumped everybody off in George Town, there was only one place I really wanted to go...

The cafe is a small, old-school property that's located at the end of the main shopping district downtown. It would probably do a lot better business if it were more centrally located near the cruise ship dock, but there you have it.

I would have eaten lunch at the Hard Rock, but I don't really care for their veggie burgers and fries. Since that's what I was craving, I decided to wander down to Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville.

What a huge fucking mistake that turned out to be.

First of all, they didn't have Boca Burgers like every other Margaritaville I had ever been to. Oh well, I decided to have nachos and a Coke instead. Not a big deal.

EXCEPT THEY WERE THE WORST NACHOS I HAVE EVER EATEN IN MY LIFE! And I am including the time I had Australian nachos where the crazy bastards mix the salsa into the chips for a soggy mess. Because, hey, at least their nachos use actual cheese and are... you know... WARM! Jimmy Buffet Margaritaville nachos are inedible shit. And COLD! They take roasted chips... pour in some FUCKING DISGUSTING COLD IMITATION CHEEZ-WHIZ-LIKE CONGEALED SUBSTANCE... put a small puddle of melted real cheese on top... then add some shriveled olives, jalapeños, and crap. What you end up with is a bunch of soggy tortilla chips coated in this grotesque oily mess. And did I mention that they were COLD? They weren't "not hot" or "merely warm"... but FUCKING COLD!

Yes. COLD! I couldn't even bring myself to eat them they were so bad...

If that wasn't bad enough, the Coke was watered down and flat. I only drank it because it was something cool. I would have complained to my waiter... but I rarely saw him. The poor guy was given way too many tables that were too far apart. I did tell him when I hunted him down to pay, but his response was to give me a "souvenir glass" I apparently paid for but never wanted, and tell me he would tell his manager.

I'd chalk this up to a bad experience, but the table next to me didn't get hot food either, and the buns on one of their burgers was stale. So... lesson learned... when you're hungry in George Town, Grand Cayman... avoid Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville like the fucking plague. Which is such a shame, because all the other Margaritavilles I've eaten at have had excellent food and service.

Jimmy should be ashamed to have his name on this place.

And, thanks to my pricey souvenir glass I never wanted, I have something to remember one of the worst meals I've ever had for the rest of my life! Or until I throw the shit in the garbage.

Anyway...

Couldn't have asked for a nicer day. Lovely sunshine and a nice breeze to keep things pleasant. And then there's that amazing Caribbean Blue water here that looks like some kind of Photoshop hack, but really isn't...

Sweet! As I was writing this, I heard somebody telling bad jokes over a loudspeaker ("WHY DIDN'T THE SKELETON CROSS THE ROAD? HE DIDN'T HAVE THE GUTS!"). I thought it was coming from the ship, but it was instead a small touristy pirate ship thing floating by my balcony...

Yo! Ho! A pirates life for me!

And, just like that, my last excursion was over. We set sail for Florida in a couple hours.

30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Inspiration...

This should come as no shock to anybody who has read Blogography for any amount of time. Steve Jobs takes inspiration to an entirely new level. But he did that with most things. I know it probably rings hollow for somebody to gush over a person they've never met... but I miss Steve Jobs terribly and think of him often. What I wouldn't give for just one more keynote speech... just one more thing.

Another sea day.

Which is kind of a relief, as it gives me a chance to recover from the hideous burns on my face after cruising through the Panama Canal. As in... HOLY CRAP! MY FACE HAS BEEN BURNT OFF! Thanks a lot, stupid sun-screen lotion that didn't work! Actually, the burns aren't quite so bad now. Only my forehead blistered, so it's pretty raw... the rest of my face has settled down to a rosy glow. In another couple of days I should be back to quasi-normal-looking, but with a slight tan.

Anyway...

With nothing better to do, I started placing the artwork for the latest issue of THRICE FICTION. I know I say this every time, but this is probably our best issue yet! RW has found some mind-bogglingly good stories for numero quatro, and I can't wait for everybody to get their hands on it. Which will probably be the end of next week, once I've had a chance to code the eBook editions.

And so now I take my leave of you with this gorgeous sunset that's happening out my balcony...

Thank you "VIVID SUNSET MODE" on my pocket Canon camera!"

30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw a Family Portrait...

At long last the excursion I've been waiting for finally arrived: SLOTHS!

I've been a huge fan of these little mammals for a long time. And watching sloth television shows on Animal Planet and sloth videos on YouTube has only made me like them more. As if all that weren't enough, baby sloths are about the cutest things you'll ever see.

The Sloth Sanctuary is located about a half-hour's drive out of the ship's port of call in Limon. They take in baby sloths who have been abandoned and adult sloths who have been injured. They also have a nature walk and canoe float to see even more wildlife species of the rainforest.

30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Favorite Fairytale...

Most fairytales in their original, non-Disneyfied versions are totally messed up. Far from being perky stories to brighten your day, these children's tales by the likes of The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen are filled with death and depression. For a classic example, get your hands on the original The Little Mermaid sometime and see how twisted a story for kids can get. The Little Match Girl is no less fucked up than other fairytales, but it's got a base element that rings true, and so it's kind of stuck with me over the years...

A little girl is out in the cold trying to sell matches on New Years Eve. She's close to freezing, but she can't go home because her father will beat her if she doesn't sell the matches. With nowhere to go because she hasn't sold anything, she seeks refuge in a nook and lights a match to keep herself warm. A shooting star appears and she remembers how her kindly grandmother told her before she died that this was a person going to heaven. With the next match she lights, the girl has a vision of her grandmother... the only person to ever love her... in the flame. She continues to light the matches one-by-one so she can keep the vision of her grandmother alive. But, sadly, eventually she runs out of matches and freezes to death. Her grandmother then shows up as a spirit and takes the little match girl to heaven.

So, basically, life sucks and then you die. Such a great lesson for kids.

Since this ship didn't go all the way through the Panama Canal, I took an excursion that would continue onward to the Pacific. Kind of boring, but I didn't come all this way to only go through half the canal.

It was pleasant enough, I guess, except I ended up burned again... even though I piled on the sunscreen...

30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw a Comic...

And by "comic" I'm assuming a comic book hero will work?

It was a roasting 90° F in Columbia today. I thought I'd melt under the flawless blue skies of beautiful Cartegena, but instead I just got a little red.

Some random shots of the day, because I'm too tired for much else...

30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Most Recent Accomplishment...

Getting six full hours of sleep last night was a major accomplishment.

Even if it was artificially-induced.

If it's going to rain in The Caribbean, it's usually just for a bit in the morning until the sun comes out and burns the clouds away. Which is why I'm at a complete loss as to why the ship's itinerary has it docking in Oranjestad, Aruba (an independent part of the Netherlands) at FRICKIN' SEVEN O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING when it was pissing down rain... then leaving at 12:30, just as blue skies were arriving. If I were a sun worshiper coming to enjoy one of Aruba's magnificent beaches, I'd be pissed.

But I'm not, so I don't get all bent out of shape. Heck, cloudy days with a little rain make for some beautiful photos, so I'm perfectly fine with that kind of weather.

Which didn't come until 9:30am, meaning I spent a couple hours getting drenched. Because the rain rolled in just moments after docking...

Visiting the "California Lighthouse" (named for a ship that sunk off the coast here) was a wet experience indeed...

But after a while the sun started breaking through and even the dogs were coming out...

By the time I arrived at "Baby Natural Bridge," the rain had completely stopped and the skies were clearing...

"Baby Natural Bridge" is a land formation where the water has eaten away at the base of a big rock, creating a bridge...

The original "Natural Bridge" was bigger than "Baby Natural Bridge," but it collapsed into the ocean back in 2005. It's the black busted rocks you see on the right there...

And here's a better view...

In the above picture, the waterline used to extend all the way up onto the sand there. But when Natural Bridge collapsed, it blocked off the ocean. Apparently, tourists used to walk across the bridge all the time so, luckily, it fell apart in the early morning when nobody was around to get hurt.

There's a few places on the island where giant boulders randomly appear for no reason that geologists understand. This makes them a tourist attraction, and you can even climb on top of one like a mini Stone Mountain!

And, of course, my last stop had to be the Hard Rock Cafe Aruba, so I could pick up a shirt and a few pins...

AT LEAST I WOULD HAVE BOUGHT A T-SHIRT IF THE SHOP HAD ANY OF THEM... ABSOLUTELY ANY OF THEM... IN A SIZE LARGE!! How incredibly stupid do you have to be to run out of the one souvenir that everybody wants in the most popular size on earth? It's as if the management at this Hard Rock just said "Fuck it! We don't want the cash!"... and then set a huge pile of money on fire in the middle of the fucking restaurant. I mean, seriously, selling souvenir shirts and pins at a Hard Rock is like printing money. You get guaranteed sales at a massive profit margin, and so it makes zero sense why any Hard Rock would ever... ever... run out.

Unless they were purposely trying to run themselves out of business.

Oh well.

With an hour left to kill, I wandered down the colorful streets of Oranjestad...

And, as you can see, blue skies struck with a vengeance... just as the ship was leaving port.

And that was the first port excursion on my cruise. A welcome event after two days trapped on a giant boat at sea.

30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw the Turning Point in Your Life...

While there are many turning points in my life, the biggest would be a visit to Thailand back in 1998. My entire outlook on life was completely changed. Suddenly all the things that once seemed so critical to my happiness became trivial and petty. Some of this came from studying Buddhist teachings... but mostly it came from the beautiful example set by the Thai people themselves. It was as if I had been sleepwalking for decades and suddenly started to wake up as to what was important in life.

It doesn't get to be more of a turning point than that.

I'M TRAPPED! TRAPPED LIKE A RAT ON A BIG BOAT!!

Sea days on a cruise are tough. Two of them in a row is really tough.

The highlight of my day was watching some chefs cut fruits and vegetables into a variety of interesting shapes, then assembling these shapes into various birds, fish, and animals...

Yep, that was my day.

30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Favorite Candy...

I love U-NO bars. The texture is sublime. They're sweet... but have little salty almond bits. I could eat them morning, noon, and night, but only seem to find them around Halloween where I live.

Probably a good thing.

But a little boring to draw.

Sea day. Sea day. Just a boring sea day.

As I'm not much a fan of laying around and eating until you puke, sea days aren't my favorite thing on a cruise. Though the weather was pretty amazing (if a little windy)...

30 DAYS DRAWING CHALLENGE: Draw Your Favorite Television Show...

Easily my favorite show to have ever existed was Jeremy Piven's Cupid. I'd tell you to go buy it on DVD so you could see just how amazing and magical that television can be but, alas, it's not available. I keep hoping though.