We arrived in the port of Shenzhen this morning at about 7:00 AM. It was a long ride in from the ocean to get to the port. Today we have an included tour called Shenzhen From The Sea.
When we woke up this morning, Stephanie was not feeling that well, she was having some stomach issues, and we did not know why. She had been up during the night throwing up a little, and she was really tired this morning. It may have been some of the food we ate two days ago on our tour in Quanzhou, there had been one dish of oysters and eggs, cooked together like an omelet, maybe it was not cooked well enough, but if we can’t drink the water here, the oysters in the bays may not be that clean either, and not good for us to eat. Other than that, we couldn’t think of anything other than just picking it up by touching something, even though we religiously use hand sanitizer. Nothing she had for dinner seemed like it would upset her stomach, it was a steak, a salad, and cheesecake.
She had taken some Imodium and was at least not having any urgent issues, but felt weak and not comfortable going for a three-hour ride on a boat, so I was going alone.
I headed up to get some breakfast at the buffet. I just had my usual items and a little coffee. I went ahead and got Stephanie a croissant and some rolls, something bland to eat for breakfast, and I carried them down to the room.
The tour was scheduled to start at 8:30 AM, so I gathered up my gear and headed down to the security area on the ship to disembark and head into the terminal. The boat I was taking this morning was berthed just in front of our ship, so all I had to do was walk down to it in the terminal hallway. It was a good walk there, and boarding was already in progress, so I was on the boat quickly. It was a good-sized motorized catamaran, at least 200 feet long. There were three decks and we boarded on deck 2.
The staff on board directed everyone into a small theater, and we all had to watch a safety briefing on how to do several things in case there was an emergency. After that, we were allowed to roam around, so I went up to Deck 3 to get a better view. There were quite a few tables and chairs on the stern of that deck, and they were already full by the time I got there, so some of the passengers must have been in an earlier boarding group and were able to get these better seats.
There were not that many places to sit on this deck, and the bow area was roped off, it appeared that people on this deck would obstruct the view of the bridge, and that is not good.
We cast off a few minutes later and as we were going by the ship, I noticed someone on the upper decks looking at us. It looked like Stephanie, and she started to wave, and I waved back, so I knew it was her. Unfortunately, I had not brought my phone, I sat it down in the room and just forgot to pick it up before I left. I was trying to do hand signals to let her know I had no phone, I was putting my hand by my ear and then making a waving “no” sign, then pointing to my hip and making the same “no” signal, as in my phone was not on my hip in the holster. I did not know if she got the message or not.
The boat headed out of the small harbor where we were berthed. We headed across the bay to see an oyster farm and it was gigantic. Each “farm” looked like some type of floats supporting fencing under the water where the oysters would be attached. There there hundreds of them, if not more, all close along the shore. It was very interesting.
Then we headed parallel to the the oyster farm heading toward the downtown area of Shenzhen. We passed under a bridge and did not go much farther before we turned around and headed back the exact same way we had come, which was disappointing.
Once we got closer to the harbor where the ship was berthed, we kept going aways to the end of a large container port. Then we turned and went parallel the container port for the entire way back to the ship. It was interesting at first, but not very scenic. Shenzhen is the third largest port in China, and the section we were passing was just a small part of the port.
I had gone down to Deck 2 so I could go to the bow of the ship for photos. There were shrimp jumping on the surface of the water as the boat was underway and that was interesting to watch. The trip by the container port was done at a very slow speed, and it was sort of agonizing.
We finally made it back to the dock. It was not a terrible excursion, but I had thought we would see more than what we did, especially the last 45 minutes by the container port. It was more of a boat ride than a sightseeing tour in my opinion. Plus, it was not like we had not just spent a few days lately riding on a ship!!
I headed back to the ship after getting off the boat and walking back down the terminal hallway.
When I arrived back at the cabin, Stephanie was just in the room resting.
We both headed up to the buffet a short time later for some lunch. Stephanie could not eat much, still sticking to bananas and bread and some plain rice, and she did not have any wine, but I enjoyed both the buffet and some of the house Sauvignon Blanc that we like.
Later in the day, we headed back to the cabin to pack. We will disembark the ship tomorrow morning, so we need to have all of our suitcases out in the hallway by 10:00 PM. We packed up most of the clothes we will not need, and had everything about 90% of everything packed when we were done. We have to plan on having everything out we need for tonight and also make sure we have the clothes we need for tomorrow. We also put some extra clothes in the carry-on bag we will keep with us tomorrow when we get off of the ship, just in case something happens to our luggage.
We spent some time out on the balcony, it had turned into a beautiful day. It had been a little overcast this morning for the boat ride, but now it was a cloudless sky and hardly any wind, the only issue was the haze that is in China most of the time from pollution, and having sea spray in the air being so close to the coast.
We headed down to the Library Bar. Stephanie was not going to have anything to drink, but I had a glass of the Gnarly Head Zinfandel they have on the ship. When we originally saw it on the wine menu, we thought it was the same one as we drink at home, which is good, but not great. This was in a completely different vintage, and it was one of the most expensive by-the-glass wines they had on the ship. It was definitely better. We did not stay long before we both headed to the buffet for dinner.
Stephanie had a few light items, still fighting her stomach bug. I had a regular meal, but I also did not eat much knowing we had to get up early tomorrow morning to start our post-cruise land portion of the trip. We are flying to Chengdu tomorrow morning from the Hong Kong Airport, so we have to meet our bus group tonight at 7:30 PM in the Theater to get all of the details.
At 7:30 PM, we headed to the Theater to meet with Michael about the post-cruise portion of the trip. We will be back what the same group we had before the cruise, and Michael will still be our guide until the end.
The meeting was short, he just told us about the luggage schedule for tonight and the time we needed to meet back at the theater tomorrow morning, which is 6:40 AM. We have luggage tags for our designated group and we will be picking up our large luggage tomorrow morning in the cruise terminal after we disembark.
We called it an early night so we could complete the last of our packing and get our bags out into the hallway by 10:00 PM. We were both tired and knew it would be an early morning tomorrow to make it to the scheduled meeting time of 6:40 AM.
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