"Treasures of Cruising the World" with Bill & Mary Ann: Report # 74 Sailing Towards Colombo, Sri Lanka March 13, 2014 Thursday Partly cloudy, 85 degrees

The day was progressing much the same as most sea days when the Captain gave his 12:45pm talk. Ten minutes after he wrapped up his talk with an explanation of the history of measuring a ship's speed by knots, when out of the blue, a fire alarm sounded throughout the ship. We suspected that it was not a drill, since those are always announced several minutes prior to happening. No, this was real. Within seconds the fire and rescue team was summoned, while we looked for signs of smoke coming from the ship. We were at the aft pool at the time, and did realize that the engines had slowed, and we were not moving forward anymore. Something was definitely wrong. Before we had a chance to make educated (or not) guesses about the cause of the alarm, the Captain came on and said there had been a small fire in an engine room, and it had been brought under control. All was well, and we would soon be on our way. Whew, that was scary. The fleeting thought that we could have been disabled in the middle of this vast ocean and in this heat and humidity was not a good feeling.

The rest of the news for the day pales under comparison, but life continues as we figured out that for us, over half of the trip is behind us Don't know how the time has gone by so quickly. A reminder that we will be in the South Atlantic Ocean was evident when Barbara H. gave a talk on things to do and see while in the Seychelles and St. Helena. The following port, Ascension Island, was missed last year, because we could not get the tenderboats to shore. Sure hope that does not happen again.

The new passengers that boarded the ship in Hong Kong must have a lot of dirty clothes, since the laundry had to print a notice in the daily newsletter stating that the turnaround time will be increased from 48 hours to 72 hours. So far, our small batches have come back to us within one day. This sure is a nice perk, because you can waste a whole lot of time trying to get machines that are not being used, not to mention money too.

Recent entertainers have been Jeff Stevenson, a top-rated comedian, and Stephan Clark, a flute player. We have had reports that both of them were pretty good. Tonight's entertainment began at 7:15pm, one show for all guests. Nightlife was the theme, with dances and songs from the 70's and 80's.

We would have been unable to go to it, because we had a 6:30pm special dinner invitation to the Pinnacle Grill Restaurant hosted by our travel agency. Tom, Henk, and Lucia, our hosts, invited eight of us. They included Eddie and Lee, Ellen W., Fran, Julia & Don, and us. It was a fun dinner because we all know each other pretty well. Julia has the most days sailed than anyone we know.....over 3300 of them. Since she is almost 95, she sure has spent a lot of her days on the HAL ships.

Dinner with hosts Lucia, Henk, Tom & friends in the Pinnacle Grill

We were seated in the back room at the largest table in the place. Since we do not drink wine, Henk offered to provide us with cocktails. Of course, we said OK. We both ordered the caesar salad, although, they are no longer mixed tableside. We each had a steak, which was tender and tasty, along with sides of mushrooms, and Idaho baked potatoes. Desserts were a different type of cheesecake, and a baked Alaska, without the flames. By the way, all of the items that used to be cooked with an open flame, have been eliminated from the menu. We never did order one of those entrees, but it was fun watching the waitresses torch the steak diane or the flaming brochettes of meat. Guess if there was an accident, the whole restaurant could have gone up in flames.