Day three at sea found much cooler temperatures, less humidity, but far rougher seas. The spray from the waves hitting the portside of the ship sent sprinkles all the way to our veranda early this morning. We figured that Captain Friso had been over-cautious when talking about deteriorating weather conditions, but we see now he was right on with his warnings.
We have traveled far enough south of the Equator to notice a drop of perhaps 10 degrees in the temps. During the course of the day, we estimate that the swells had increased to over 25 feet, and as Captain Friso said, there are "white horses" out there, referring to the white caps on the wave tops. When we went for our morning stroll, very few people were outside. Perhaps that's partly due to the fact that the teak lounges were still folded and tied up. Last night when they were lashing them down, we figured they expected some rough weather. The winds had picked up significantly too. When we walked around the bow of the promenade deck, the winds hit us as we rounded the corner. Later in the evening, all of the outside decks were roped off because it was not safe. Truthfully, this trip has had very little in the way of rough seas, so we guess we were due for some motion of the ocean.
We are sure that the World Stage was full during the talks in there all day. Besides the scheduled area speakers, the Captain and the future cruise consultants spoke about the 2025 Grand World Voyage and the recent itinerary update. Changes were made a week or more ago regarding the itinerary which had included a trip through the Suez Canal. Much of that was cancelled and we were re-routed up the West coast of Africa. Better safe than sorry. Flyers with the new itinerary were delivered to our rooms, but they still did not write a day-by-day itinerary. We suppose by now, HAL has the complete trip including dates and sea days online.
Once again, we had a meeting with Greg at the Seaview Pool, but today we were under cloudy skies and windy decks. All of us wondered if the strange couple would appear back here like yesterday. Strange does not begin the describe this newly-boarded couple that went swimming in the pool yesterday. Difficult to describe them nicely, let's just say they were not the typical cruisers….not by a long shot. The elderly man seemed normal, but the not-so-young woman had to be under the influence of something. She came near us and began clicking two large clothes pins in our faces, that are used to hold the towels in the lounges. Trying to ignore this, she said she had other uses for these clips, but could not say what in front of the crowd. We did not want to know, as we tried our best to ignore her. We silently wished she would put her bathrobe back on, since she was scantily dressed. Then she went and confronted some folks at the side tables because they were staring. She also engaged Greg, who remained as polite as he could be, but was just as uncomfortable as we were. That's when it began to rain (thank goodness), and they donned the robes and left. They never appeared today as the weather was not a good one for swimming.
The Captain talked after the noon whistle, saying we will be docking tomorrow, which is good. However, he did say the seas would start giving us more trouble later this evening. He stressed for everyone to be careful outside and in the stairwells. Don't have to tell us twice.
Dinnertime came quickly as always. We ordered shrimp cocktails and one salad and one antipasti plate. Nice for a change. Both of us had the prime rib, but ordered it cooked differently. One of us likes it cooked more, like medium, while the other likes it medium-rare. Both came the same - mostly rare. Our waiter had disappeared and we did not want to wait forever to replace the one dish. So we shared the better parts of the most cooked meat, but had to leave the rawest. When Yanwar finally appeared, he was not happy that we had not spoken up so he could bring us the correct meat. He did offer to replace it, but we were full by then. A dessert of date pudding and a glass of sliced bananas were just enough to finish our meal. From here on out, we asked for the meat to be at least on the medium side and he agreed to pay more attention when he serves it. Deal.
The country singer, Chris Bannister, was the entertainer this evening. Tonight he sang music from the artists of the 70's such as Bob Dylan, James Taylor, Gordon Lightfoot, Paul Simon, and Jim Croce. He really did a fine job.
Tomorrow we shall be in Mozambique, another interesting African country.
Bill & Mary Ann
