Noon Report:

• Location: N 23° 11.10′, E 117° 42.99′
• Speed: 17.7 Knots
• Course: 52º
• Weather: Clear
• Temperature: 21º C; 70º F
• Wind: NE 12 knots; 14 mph
• Sea: Slight chop / swells

Today was a sea day – the first of 3 on this cruise.
We started in the normal fashion – earning those calories.
Back at the cabin we got cleaned up and grabbed a quick breakfast before heading down to the Theatre for the first of today’s lectures:

There wasn’t a lot new in this lecture, although it did help to put Cheryl’s comments on April 8 about the ceding of Hong Kong to the Chinese in 1997 into context.

We skipped the next lecture – the Resident Astronomer was talking about the Solar System and devoted the time to catching up on blogging/reading.

Lunch today featured a lobster fettuccini feast on the terrace.

After lunch we blogged and read for a bit until the next lecture:

The lecturer is a published author on plants, plant history, and gardening.

At 4:30 we attended the port talk on Keelung (the docking port for Taipei). We’ve already scheduled our day but it’s good to get additional information about the area, the city, the history, etc.

At 6:30 the lecture was about the geology that shaped and is shaping Taiwan. Very interesting stuff, and topics not unfamiliar to Idahodians.

Then it was off to dinner and back to the stateroom to get rested up for a very full day in Taipei tomorrow.

Till then, Nite All.

Cheryl’s Factoids:

• Like Japan, Taiwan is on the dividing line between two plates – the Filipino oceanic place subducts beneath the Eurasian plate, pushing up a wall of mountains on the east coast of Taiwan and leading to volcanoes, hot springs, and lots of earthquakes on the island (they just had a 7.2 earthquake on April 3rd before we got here.) The older buildings usually fall first as they were built with shoddy materials whereas newer buildings are built with earthquakes in mind.