Sunday, February 2, 2014

At Sea

             On Saturday, 01 Feb, Jesse awoke around 9:30 AM, but Sally slept until 11:00 AM.  By the time we made our way to the Horizon Court, breakfast was no longer served; but we were able to find fruit, yogurt, and rice pudding on the lunch buffet, which satisfied our breakfast appetite.

            After breakfast, we stopped by the library and picked out a few books.  No librarian was on duty, but notes on the back of the books state that their books are equipped with security devices which will alert security if you attempt to take one of their books off the ship!

            When we returned to our cabin, Sally lay down for a nap and ended up sleeping until 5:00 PM.  Jesse wrote a couple of genealogy e-mails and then read the first two chapters of the Hunger Games.  Yes, that’s right; Jesse was reading a book rather than watching TV for a change.

            Because we had a formal dinner tonight, we dressed in our finest and made it down for dinner (yes, we skipped lunch today) about 6:00 PM, where we were joined by John and Barbara from Kansas City.  He is a retired lawyer, and she is a retired school teacher (and principal).  Our interesting conversation ended with a discussion on DNA genealogy, and they asked how to sign up.  After dinner, we danced to the Playlist Band in the Wheelhouse Bar before retiring for the night.

            On Sunday, 02 Feb, since Sally had napped all afternoon on Saturday, she awoke at 4:30 AM and played on the computer for a couple of hours before returning to bed.  Jesse awoke at 6:00 AM and resumed his reading program.  We finally headed for breakfast about 9:00.

            Although there was a dance lesson (waltz) at 1:00, we could see that they were spending so much time on the very basics that we wouldn’t learn anything new. 

After lunch, Sally decided she wanted to swim in the smaller, inside pool, where the water was warmer than in the somewhat bigger pool.  Jesse went along with the idea, even though the water was sloshing almost dangerously in and out of the pool.  At one moment, the strong current would carry a swimmer in one direction – and then, suddenly the current would reverse itself, carrying the swimmer in the opposite direction.  Staying afloat in the water was difficult, and swimming nearly impossible.  At least we expended considerable energy!   Rails on the sides of the pool were extremely helpful.  There were at least seven other people in the pool at one point, possibly because it looked so exciting.  (We were surprised that the pool was kept open.)

            The captain’s channel on our TV reported “rough seas” with 7.5 to 12 ft. waves, which caused the pool to slosh over the sides.  Also on this channel was a map showing the path of this ship, which was eastward past Cuba (the reason we had set our clocks ahead), and then south going west of Haiti and east of Jamaica.

            We went to dinner at 6:00 PM and joined a table for six, the others being:  Peggy and Eileen, from near Philadelphia (their husbands were busy watching the Super Bowl pre-game show); and Judy and Bryan, from Vancouver, Canada.  Bryan is a recently retired firefighter.  He’s going scuba diving in Aruba; maybe someday we’ll do that… but probably not!  Mostly, we discussed the bad winter weather and cruises.  After dinner, we danced again to the Playlist Band in the Wheelhouse Bar before retiring for the night.

No comments:

Post a Comment