During the wee hours of the night, the seas felt like the swells and winds were increasing. Especially when one of us woke up feeling a tad queasy. Normally, the motion never bothered either of us, but when you first begin a cruise, it is not unusual to get your “sea legs” slowly. Locating the meds seemed to help a bit later in the day, but the most important thing we have learned is that you need to eat and drink a little all day. Never go hungry. Sounds strange, but it does help. Recommended items are chicken noodle soup, crackers, apples, and even ginger.
On the positive side, one of us celebrated the start of a new decade today. Worrying about turning 50 really was a piece of cake, however, 20 years later, you think can that be right??? Time flies when you are having fun as the saying goes. Several cards were already waiting outside the door, which is always a nice start to the day. Later on, the bellboy delivered a card from Captain Mercer with a special chocolate candy bar attached to it. Nice touch this year. WE don’t have any special plans for dinner, since it will be the first gala evening, and we really don’t like dining in the Pinnacle on formal nights. Hopefully it will be low-key, and this birthday girl will not be disappointed if the waiters don’t bring the cake and singers. Always embarrassing.
We continued on with the room set-up, mostly with re-making the bed with the topper. Worked perfectly. Before we knew it, the time had arrived for lunch with Barb. During breakfast, Ian, the CD, came on the speaker announcing that he will be arriving with a Kevlar vest at Team Trivia today. Wonder what he meant by that? We do know that this particular group is over-the-top competitive, and will not tolerate any errors by the host. When Barb arrived, we asked her how things were going at the game. Her answer was that with his British accent, Ian was a bit hard to understand. But with a totally full Ocean Lounge of players, perhaps they are noisy as well. Probably takes a week to straighten it all out.
Trying to take our morning walk outside was difficult. The starboard side was completely wet with spray coming off of the waves. Winds were peaking at 52 MPH we believe. With soaked decks and the motion of the ship, we had better try this walk later or risk injury. One thing for sure is that all of the folks in the new lanai rooms on that side of the ship would not be using their private lounges anytime too soon. The lounges did have brand new pads, but they were dripping wet. Later in the afternoon, one of us did walk on the promenade, while the other continued stashing stuff in the hanging shoe bag and sorting daily meds to last one month.
At 3pm, we took a walk to The Mainstage (formerly Queen’s Lounge) to listen to the guest speaker begin her series on boobies and frigates. Of course we are interested in anything with animals and birds, so this was right up our alley. The speaker, Gloeta Massie, was quite animated and interesting. She had good photos and kept her talk amusing as well as informative. There is a chance this will be repeated on the TV, we hope. We checked later, and it was.
The Captain’s welcome onboard reception and Black and Gold dinner was the theme for this evening. Since we always like to watch how people dress for the first occasion, we went to the two chairs we like on deck five to relax while the folks went into lounge. We are happy to say that 99% of the early crowd dressed smartly for the occasion. Most all of the gentlemen wore suits with ties, or tuxes. Very few dressed more casual. The ladies seem to be more into fashion for some unknown reason. The trend here appears to be more relaxed without the spike heels, which we have seen in the past. With the motion of the ship, who needs to suffer the fancy dress shoes???
Speaking of the seas, they continued to be rough as the ship cut through the pounding swells. This strong wind must be throughout the entire Caribbean. Hope it improves soon, and we have a chance to stretch our legs on land tomorrow in Santa Marta, Colombia.
Our turn was at 7pm, and the ceremony was as it always was. Drinks served were wines and sparkling wine, unless you knew a bar staffer who could find you what you liked. Since the open seating dining began, the most attended party has become 4:30pm. The same seems to apply to the after dinner entertainment. The second time around at 10pm has a scattering of passengers, as we would discover later.
Tonight we had the Black and Gold dinner, which meant we would have a host. We could have invited some staff people we know, but we did not move quick enough this time. Instead, Phillip sent the first engineer, a young fellow by the name of Daniel. All of us enjoyed getting to know him, and with just the three of us, he was most comfortable. Most of the usual suspects were on the menu such as escargots, turf and surf, pate, as well as a large ravioli or chef salads, which three of us ordered for entrees. We exchanged sailing stories from the past, and also experiences we all remembered from recent world cruises where he was present. Staying until 10pm, we bid good evening, then we were off to the show lounge to check it out.
So the singer was new to us, from the Netherlands, by the name of Isabel Commandeur. She described herself as the equivalent to the American Idol winner in the USA. Sometimes the best talents arise from this group, and we would say she was one of them. A versatile and unique singer, she mixed some humor with songs from the past to present. We both agreed she reached notes we never knew could be reached. The good thing about that was she had excellent control and did not burst our eardrums. When she slowly took her wrap around skirt off, revealing a short sequined blue dress, she had the audience in her hand. Great show.
And a nice way to spend the start of another decade! Also, we had presents again tonight…..two Moleskine journals to keep track of our travels.
Bill & Mary Ann
