Subject: Report # 29 Sailing Towards Bay of Islands, New Zealand January 29, 2016 Friday Partly cloudy & 80 degrees
Report # 29 Sailing Towards Bay of Islands, New Zealand January 29, 2016 Friday Partly cloudy & 80 degrees
Hey, what happened to Thursday, January 28th? Seems we lost it as we sailed over the International Dateline. Both of us got certificates today verifying that we went from Wednesday to Friday, losing one whole day in the process. The dateline is an imaginary line that separates two consecutive calendar days. Simply put, it separates the Eastern hemisphere from the Western hemisphere. Looking at a map, we noticed that this line zig zags to accommodate countries or islands that chose to be a day ahead for convenience reasons. We will, however, get the lost day back as we head west, one hour at a time.
We had to laugh when we went to the dining room this morning for breakfast. Dozens of umbrellas were hung from the ceiling, decorations for the gala dinner tonight, Bowlers and Bumper Shoots, or top hats and parasols. It will be in honor of the Commonwealth Nations holiday coming soon. At first, we thought there were leaks in the ceiling.
Many talks were delivered today, starting with Barbara telling all about going ashore in the Bay of Islands. Guest speaker Alan Wright spoke about life in outer space, while the explorers of the past were discussed by Joseph Kess. Sure wish these talks were repeated on TV, but guess that is a thing of the past.
Don't think we have mentioned it yet, but there are classes for Windows 10 in the Digital Workshop every sea day. So far we have not attempted to get into the class, mostly because the line starts an hour before the class time. Today, for example, there were two sessions with Q and A about Windows as well as the two classes. Eventually, the sessions will repeat themselves, and we may take the time to attend.
The work continued on the damaged tender boat. Most of the time, all we saw were the workers looking at the boat, but not doing anything with it. Many of the parts probably have to be created in the shops below, so the boat will be out of commission for a while.
Despite the fact that it looked like rain today, the clouds went away, and the day was next to perfect weather wise. Good time to get some reading in and some sun too. There have been plenty of lounges available in the aft area, so there are no complaints about people saving chairs. They still save them for hours, but no one cares.
The highlight of the day was dinner tonight. Our Hotel Director, Henk, joined our table at 8pm. We sure did not expect to see him this evening, because usually every gala night there is a Captain's Dinner. Not so tonight. A good guy, he answered many questions all evening, giving us all more insight into the cruise industry. He kindly treated us to a fine white wine too, as most all hosts do. To take it a step further, he encouraged us to write some of our questions for Orlando Ashford, the HAL President, who will be joining the ship in Sydney. One of our questions concerned how many guests were leaving in Sydney. The total is in the 140 area, with about the same amount getting on.
Our entrees were the veal chop, the really good one they used to serve in the Pinnacle Grill. Tender and tasty, we let Henk know that the food has been a step up from our last cruise in the fall. He agreed and told us that the budget is higher for a grand voyage. Good for us.
Our dinner finally broke up by 10pm, in time to go to the show lounge to see La Musica, two singers with popular hits to traditional classics.
By the way, the happy hour from 6 to 7pm has continued in the Ocean Bar and Crows Nest. Barb said that there are many more people coming during that time, compared to the first part of the cruise. Good thing someone pushed for it.
The clocks finally went back one hour this evening. Nice, because we all can use the extra sleep.
Bill & Mary Ann
PS Thanks for the birthday wishes for me…..Mary Ann. The vases we have for our flowers have come from housekeeping. You can request them through your room steward. Appreciated the stories about other tender boat accidents.
