In the winter of 2007, my wife and I came upon the idea of taking an around-the-world cruise. Our reasoning—most importantly, we were both in good health and were not limited physically from enjoying all the experiences such a trip could provide. We were both retired and could reasonably afford such a trip if we were prudent in selecting among all of the add-on options. We had taken multiple Caribbean cruises over the years and were “ship ready, ” and we had great curiosity about the numerous variances in world cultures as well as topographies.
We decided upon a Holland-America cruise upon the flagship Amsterdam. The route was a sleep-friendly west to east, leaving and arriving from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Our cruise departed on January 4, 2008, and arrived back at Ft. Lauderdale on April 27, 2008—a total of 113 days, covering 35, 936 nautical miles and stops at forty-one ports. An itinerary of our cruise is included as an appendix.
As we concluded the arrangements for our cruise, we promised our friends and relatives to send regular emails of our adventures. We gathered information from various sources to compose our emails as the cruise progressed. The normal course of accumulating historical facts and descriptions of current culture and local customs were gained in advance from highly educated speakers brought aboard ship prior to each disembarkment. Typically, these speakers were natives of the countries or environments they described. We closely followed and took copious notes of these presentations delivered in the ship’s auditorium.
A second source of information along a broad spectrum of topics were the native guides assigned to our groups on shore excursions, be they by foot, bus, or water craft. Without exception, the local guides were invaluable in presenting the realities of their countries, environments, and lifestyles.
Lastly, each of our shore excursions produced vivid and unique impressions of our environments that would be in addition to, and sometimes counter, to our on board presenters and our shore guides. Little did we know that our collection of emails and photos would later become chapters in a book. Our advice to our readers—it is better to experience it live than read about it. Should you decide to take such an around-the-world cruise, we wish you bon voyage.
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James (Jim) Cameron was born in Arizona in 1946 and grew up in Southern California. He is the single child of Leonard Cameron and Marjorie Wingfield Cameron. His mother was a grade school teacher, and his father was a technician for public water supply companies. Mr. Cameron graduated from Fontana High School as salutatorian in 1964 and served as the high school’s student body vice president and Key Club president. He was voted the school’s top science student in his senior year by the high school faculty.
Always a baseball fan, he lettered three times on the high school varsity baseball team and later played on the Claremont Mc Kenna College (then Claremont Men’s College) baseball team, from which he graduated with a BA in economics in 1968. A thrill of his life was playing on a team assembled by renowned Claremont coach Bill Arce, which took his team to play exhibition baseball games in Europe during the summer of 1966, with each player living individually with a family in the Netherlands to teach local youth the game of baseball.
After Claremont, Mr. Cameron enrolled at UCLA where he earned an MS degree in business administration in 1970 and had the thrill of watching great college basketball and the arrival of the player then known as Lew Alcindor.
In 1974 he married Constance (Connie) Mae Creighton. Over the years, the couple have lived in Southern California, Colorado, North Carolina, and Florida. They currently live in Littleton, Colorado. They have two children—son Clint, who resides in Washington, DC, with his wife and son, and daughter Lauren who resides in Denver, Colorado.
Mr. Cameron’s entire working career was in health-care administration. His areas of responsibility included HMO development, medical economics, group physician practices, clinical administration, sales management, and consulting.
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