A boring day at sea, it was not. Everyone we talked to was happy to have that extra hour of sleep last night. Especially the crew. More times than not, when these crew members get some extra time off, even while in port, they use it to get some much-needed rest. Keeps them healthy.
After breakfast, we took our morning walk, and noticed that the anti-pirate fire hoses had been removed. There were no security guards on deck three duty either. Guess we are in safer waters now. Around 9:30am, there was another routine safety drill for the crew. Captain Mercer has taken it upon himself to announce these drills, as a lot of people must complain about the noise. The series of blasts began, and the drill proceeded like normal. Little did we know that later today, we would hear those blasts once again, but it was not a drill…..
We learned what to see and do in Phu My (pronounced foo me), Vietnam with Barbara H’s talk. To be more exact, there is little to see and do here near the port. The main destination is Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City. A must-see once, although for us, we may have toured there three or four times in the past. So we suspect this port for us will be another sea day, as in staying on the ship.
We received the Vietnam landing cards we need to show when we leave the ship in Phu My. Even if we just walk on the dock, we need that card. When the ship leaves port, we will need to turn them in.
Yesterday, some friends asked if we knew the VIP’s that joined the ship yesterday afternoon. They had a royal welcome by the officers. Turned out that Rudi Sodamin and his companion, Ann-Marie, have arrived for the first “Rudi’s Sel de Mer” Pinnacle Grill dinner on March 13th. As far as we know, this will be the first time this ship offers this venue. And we just happen to have reservations that evening. We did dine at that venue while on the Eurodam, so we guess they are making it happen on this ship. We heard that this new concept will replace Le Cirque on all of the ships.
Having been missing from the Seaview Pool for over a week, we thought we might spend a quiet couple of hours there. The temperature had gone way up from Hong Kong, but the skies turned mostly cloudy. Sorting photos and preparing reports kept us busy until noontime. So we went to the dining room for lunch, in hopes of catching up with Barb, who we have not seen for two days. There was a large group of diners in the center section of the dining room eating lunch already. Our buddies Barb, Susie, Woody and some fellow cruisers were among the group. They were all part of Ensemble, one of the travel groups onboard. Once their lunch was over, Barb came and sat with us, and we shared news for the last two days. She had two busy days in HK, going out for a Chinese lunch, then doing the town at night going to the Night Market, then to Ned Kelly’s Club. Escorted with friends Peter and Don, she was in good hands as they had to take taxis everywhere. The shuttle had stopped running at 8pm, inconvenient for many. Guess we had to be grateful that we had the service during the day.
Between the promenade deck and the Ocean Bar, we spent a nice afternoon visiting with friends. It was at dinnertime that things got rather interesting. We had all just finished dessert, when the first warning blasts were sounded from the navigation deck. Hoping it was accidental, the announcement came from the officer of the watch that an incident had occurred, and we were to wait for further instructions. This was no drill….it was real. Wondering what it could possibly be, we asked our waiter, Slam, if he ever heard this alarm go off before. None of us have ever heard that, and neither did our waiter. Slam came to the conclusion that there may be a fire somewhere on the ship. Turned out, he was correct. Captain Mercer came back on the speakers saying there was a problem with the incinerator, and there may be a small fire. There is nothing “small” about a fire on a ship. With that, we all decided to head back to our rooms just in case we needed to do something quickly.
But being the curious people we are, we headed down to the promenade deck to see if we could smell smoke. Rounding the back of this deck, we did smell a somewhat chemical odor, which could have been smoke. When we circling around the aft area, we saw some commotion with some crew members with their gear on in the center section of the deck. This may have nothing to do with it, but there were two fellows welding here today, sending sparks across the deck. It was at this point that one of the crew members came over and said we needed to go around the other side, which we did of course. Captain Mercer came on the speaker again saying not to concern ourselves with this exercise, and all would be well soon. We prayed he was right. Probably for precautions, a crew remained on the deck, ready with the fire hoses. The final report from the Captain was that the situation had been controlled, and we need not worry ourselves with the details.
This Captain does not panic, so we trusted he was able to handle this situation without alarming anyone needlessly. He was quite reassuring In the meantime, we will keep those life vests close at hand just in case. Like we said, never a dull moment.
Hope tomorrow is less eventful.
Bill & Mary Ann
