Day two at sea and all is well. Or is it? During breakfast, we noticed that the ship had slowed down, and within minutes, we actually came to a stop. We all thought that was odd, and there was no explanation given. As we all wondered some far out possibilities of the stoppage, the ship began moving, picking up speed slowly. All was well that ended well, we say.
The temperatures had warmed up again and according to the Captain, it was 88 degrees with a high humidity of 75%. At noontime, we still had 283 nautical miles to go to reach Mauritius. We are currently traveling in waters with depths of 40,000 feet at a rate of speed at 18.5 knots. He considered the sea state to be gentle, however, we are experiencing a swell of 6.5 feet which is causing the ship to pitch. If you happened to have rooms in the very front or aft of the ship, this would feel like a merry-go-round ride. For tomorrow's forecast, Captain Frank said he expected much the same weather, but there was a chance of showers in the morning and afternoon. He also added to enjoy tomorrow's weather in Mauritius, since the chance of rain may be higher in Reunion the following day.
He gave us an update on Cyclone Jude (it sounded like Jude?) that is off of the coast of Madagascar. In the next 12 hours, he said the winds would increase to 65 knots, then be changing to a tropical storm with 25 knot winds. The good news is that he thinks there will be no impact on the upcoming ports of Richards Bay and Durban, South Africa. Hurray for that.
Kimberly follows the Captain's update every sea day with the activities of the afternoon and evening. But before she got into that info, she let us all know that we will be docking in the usual cruise terminal tomorrow in Port Louis. And there will be shuttle buses to take us to Cauden Waterfront, which was great news.
There were lectures on Durban, succulent plants, and the marine wonderland of the Indian Ocean. Giants of Africa was the 3pm documentary movie in the World Stage.
The day evaporated as they seem to do while we kept busy with internet work. It seems that the service has resumed without interruptions. Again, no explanations of what caused the problems we all had getting online. A couple of walks and a lunch of Dive -In burgers and fries was a nice change of pace. We took the time to check out the sunset, which was OK, but not spectacular. Cocktails were in order before we set off for a formal dinner.
It was another Gala menu with the usual suspects. Escargots, shrimp cocktails, surf and turf or sliced tenderloin and prawns were the fancy courses. We ordered an asparagus and palm heart salad, a Caesar salad, tomato soup and a shrimp cocktail with the good red sauce. Mains were one tortellini dish and one sea bass plate with potatoes and green beans. No dessert appealed to either of us, so we passed on ordering.
The Flyrights , a vocal group of three fellows, was the entertainment this evening. Their performance was guaranteed to be spectacular and electric.
Looking forward to a nice day in Port Louis tomorrow.
Bill & Mary Ann
