Last night, right before we went off to dinner, we had a special invitation in our mailslot. It was for the Captain's Dinner, but it was for tonight, a formal evening. Usually, they give you a two day notice, with the option of regrets only by noon the day prior. Heck, we did not even have this invitation delivered before noon yesterday. The more we thought about it, with this heat and dressing formally in the Pinnacle Grill, we decided to pass on the invite, and go another time.
We felt that there was a hint of a cooler breeze when we went out to walk this morning. At least there is no sign of any cyclone or remnants of it. We have been very lucky so far, crossing the massive Pacific Ocean. Except for some deep swells, the sailing has been smooth, and almost storm-free. The most sealife we have seen recently is here with sightings of some flying fish. Nothing exciting like dolphins or tuna, but at least something alive. Birds are nowhere to be seen.
We have never heard of an enrichment speaker series, but we have one this morning. Cary Trivanovich spoke about bullying in schools. Now that is a different subject. John Gascoigne spoke about Western powers and the South Pacific. The morning talk dealt with tropical cyclones by Dr. Whitford. That is a subject that may be of great interest of all of us.
There has been a change of the TV line-up. Some stations are still gone such as TCM,CNN, and the Cartoon Network. Re-arranged on the grid are MSNBC, FOX, BBC, ESPN, and classic music. The ship must be receiving a different feed. Whatever they are doing, we do appreciate the diversity of the news channels.
Like we said earlier, tonight was formal, but a really different one. The theme was Dinner with the Gnomes. None of us could really figure this one out. Typical decorations were missing, except for the dining room entry with a mini-Gnome village. Our waiters wore nice vests and ties, but were also wearing a pointed hat with black hair and beard attached. Gosh, they looked hot and scratchy. They continued serving us with a smile, even though we told them to take the disguise off. Each of us had a colorful party hat to wear, or not. We're bringing ours home to the kids.
And for the fourth time, we celebrated Barb's birthday with a strawberry-filled whipped cream cake. With the entrees of a tasty veal chop with a baked potato, we were full tonight. Good thing we are getting another hour back on the clock, so we can stay up later and let it settle.
Tomorrow, we will be in French territory once again on the island of New Caledonia.
