Cherishing the Gift of Time to Sketch, Paint, Read, Write

Day 71, 2024 Grand World Voyage

Thursday, March 14, 2024; At Sea, East China Sea.

I’ve been given the gift of a string of mostly unplanned days on the ship. My injured toe is healing nicely and with my sisters traveling overland in China, I’m pretty much alone – well, as alone as I can be on ship with lots of friends. Some of them sent me beautiful flowers to wish me a speedy recovery.

I actually made a list of several things I want to get done during these sea days. As I spend most of the year at sea, I occasionally need to attend to everyday chores of life — update my finances, sort through my email, straighten up the mess I’ve made in my stateroom, mark my maps with recent ports. I constantly need to research and plan tours on future cruises.

But this gift has been five open afternoons, when I settle down for a few hours of painting. I call it my happy place, when the time passes quickly. At the request of some who have commented on the blog, I’ve scattered some recent works through this post.

Sketching and painting haven’t come easy this cruise. At one time I quickly sketched at every port -– sometimes “crudely” if on a fast-paced tour. I added paint when back on board.

That cadence failed me during last year’s world cruise. I kept getting a bit further behind and so sketched from photographs. By the cruise’s end in mid-May I was still working on mid-April ports. When I stayed on the Zuiderdam for nine more weeks, I set those sketchbooks aside and started another. Again, I fell behind. The same thing happened last fall on my cruise to South America and Antarctica.

Upon reflection, I realize that my objectives have changed.

As my skills have improved, I’m taking more time to get the perspective right, to mix just the right colors, and to labor over realistic clouds, trees, landscapes and sometimes people. They are far from perfect, but I do notice improvement over the years.

Needless to say, I will go home with many of the nine sketchbooks I brought still in their original packaging.

As much as I am eager for more instruction, I’ve dropped out of the sea-day watercolor classes. Our teacher, Lucia (who stepped in to replace Deb when a family emergency called her home) is focusing on Japanese calligraphy and brush art. It’s a skill I wouldn’t mind learning, but for now I am concentrating on my own sketches.

I wrote recently about fellow passenger Steve Broin, who sketches and paints en plein air in each port. He will be leaving in about a week and just held a final showing of his art. Quite a few passengers purchased his work.

Steve has inspired me to think about ports differently, especially those I’ve visited before. Already I’ve canceled a couple of tours and am researching where in upcoming ports I might want to plant myself and my sketchbook. If it works out well, I may build my fall cruise back to Japan along those lines.

During these sea days I’ve joined in on just a few of the many activities that crowd our calendar. I enjoy Cruise Director Kimberly’s coffee chats with members of the crew or officers. I learn new tips and tricks in Bernie’s Tech for Travelers workshops. I’ve even found a little time to read for pleasure.

Captain Frank Van Der Hoeven will be leaving the Zuiderdam as scheduled in Hong Kong, our next port, and Captain Friso Kramer will take over. The two captains split the duties of ship master on last year’s Grand World Voyage as well. Several other Kansas City Chiefs fans joined my sisters and me for a Super Bowl celebration photo to contribute to the captain’s goodbye slideshow of memorable events so far on the cruise.

A few days ago, we docked at Tianjin, a Chinese city of 16 million and the closest port to Beijing. An onshore power problem prevented the gangway from reaching the ship, thus delaying everyone’s departure.

My sisters left early that morning for a six-day overland tour of the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square in Beijing, as well as the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xi’an and a Li River cruise in Guilin. They will rejoin the ship in Hong Kong. They’ve only sent me a single photo so far.

Passengers returning from three-hour (each way) tours to Beijing reported difficulties with Chinese immigration officials, who detained them for more than an hour at checkpoints along the highway. Similarly, we left Tianjin hours late as officials pored over our paperwork and documentation before releasing us. I don’t remember such a level of suspicion when we were here in past years. I decided not to even try going ashore in Tianjin, as all the shops in the huge terminal were empty and closed.