2025 NE Cruise - St John Steeple Shots

A peek-a-boo steeple shot here plus oblique angle of another below, on a church which we'll enter in the next several posts:

2025 NE Cruise - St John, Broadside Container Views

A broadside view of one of the containers.  Glowing and Found Edges effects on same below:

2025 NE Cruise - St John, Colorful Container Shopping Plaza

Part of the appeal of going on a cruise to new and (sometimes) exotic destinations is visiting towns and attractions that otherwise you wouldn't even know or think about.  Saint John is for us one example.  We'd never even heard of it, but found it interesting to explore.  Realizing that a lot of what is along ports like these is built just for the benefit of cruise passengers, they are nonetheless interesting to visit and occasionally patronize.

Imagine an entire shopping mall built primarily out of shipping containers!  I couldn't resist going crazy with the colors...

2025 NE Cruise - Portland, Neighborhood Panorama

I debated about posting this one because it's a 4-shot panorama and just so huge.  But I liked the idea of capturing a grove of houses instead of the usual cityscape.  So here it is...click the photo on a larger screen to see more detail.

And this is it for Portland posts.  Next stop:  St. John, New Brunswick

2025 NE Cruise - Old Pilings

These old pilings caught my interest.  Guess it would be too expensive to remove them, so there they are.  Closer view below:

2025 NE Cruise - Portland, Sailing Ship

An example of some of the old sailing ships plying the waters there in Portland.  Reminiscent of this post and this post, both captured in Key West back in the day.

I've gone sailing exactly once in my life.  While at UT Law School my brother bought a little Sunfish, and thought it'd be a good idea to hit Lake Travis on a blustery spring day.  It was windy and cold out there, and being so close to the water we were frequently hit by spray as the little craft bounced along.  It was nice of my brother to offer the adventure, but I vowed from that day to stay away from sailboats, especially little ones...

2025 NE Cruise - Portland Yacht

Old with the new...  Saw this yacht gliding into port on our way back to the ship.  Really sleek, probably cost in the neighborhood of $10 million or so.  It's easy to conclude that the older man with white hair perched on the bow is the owner (click on the photo to expand), literally watching his "ship come in" as it is guided by his staff.  I guess that if you're a gazillionaire something like this would be a tempting purchase.

If you have the money, why not spend it?  A fair question, but then you think of so much good that could've been done to aid the homeless, fund research to fight a disease, etc.  This concept is brought into sharp focus by a billionaire in another country who bought a super yacht for something like $150 million.  Thing was, he did not like boats or being on the water, so all he did with it was use it as a breakfast room.  Yes, he would descend from his penthouse apartment on the shoreside, walk across the street and get on his boat to eat breakfast.  Then return to his apartment or wherever else he was going for the day.

Pic below of same as it neared its berth on the other side of the ferry:

2025 NE Cruise - Portland, Fence Segment with Locks

Interesting that city officials - or somebody - had cut a segment of this fence and installed it as a standalone sculpture.  As mentioned in other places in the blog, affixing locks to a fence like this in other places has created no small problems.  Perhaps putting them on display served to appease the public while not able to allow its practice on city infrastructure.

2025 NE Cruise - Portland, Lighthouse Statue with Clock

While we were in town...

2025 NE Cruise - Portland Cityscapes

We have always wanted to go to Maine, and one of the reasons for selecting a New England cruise was this first stop in Portland.  Though just here for a day we made the most of it and explored what we could within walking distance from the terminal.  Before deboarding, however, I took the time to snap a couple of cityscapes...