At sea in the tropics

It is another hot, humid, and overcast day, but with the breeze on deck it was very pleasant to sit outside and read. We are getting closer and closer to the equator. Brian has never been this far south by sea before, and the last time I crossed the equator by sea was in 1963, these are exciting times.

There is the Senior Officers’ Party today at 11:30. Normally I am not one to miss a party, but Brian wanted to go to a talk on wildlife photography (I actually think he should be giving the talk, his wildlife photography is so good) which is on at the same time, and the dress code is informal, and I’m not sure I really want to get all dressed up at this time of the day. We have decided to give it a miss, and follow our own desires. Mine is lying out on deck with a good book in my hands, listening to the ocean below us. Can one ever tire of sea days?

I headed to deck 10 again, near to the Pavilion pool, and found the perfect spot out of the wind. I was the only person in the pool, so was able to swim my laps without bumping into anyone. The pool is warm, almost too warm, but very relaxing. I didn’t even go in for lunch, but spent the day alternating between swimming and relaxing. This turned out to be a mistake as despite what I thought was ample sunscreen, and keeping my hat on at all times I have ended up with getting jolly sunburned again, and look like I may glow in the dark my skin is such a bright red. I will just have to be more careful tomorrow.

Tonight we will enter the Amazon at 8:00 PM. Apparently there will be nothing to see, as it is so wide. Already the ocean has changed from being dark blue, to a rather muddy color. 20% of all of the world’s fresh water flows out of the Amazon, and I expect some of that is below us already.

The show tonight was a very funny magician, Stephen Garcia. His act did involve some audience participation, and luckily we were sitting toward the back of the theater so we did not get dragged into his performance. I know it’s not magic, but I still cannot fathom how he did his tricks. He was very good.

When we got back to the cabin we decided to go out on the balcony to check out the Amazon. There was the mighty river below us. With the low ship’s lighting it was a milky colour. The water was perfectly calm, and we were moving very slowly. I had never seen anything like it before. It is certainly not like going up the Mississippi to New Orleans.

From this evening until the evening of January 29^th when we sail out of the river, they will be dimming the open deck lighting and they have requested that we keep our balcony lights turned off between the hours of 6:00PM and 6:00AM to prevent attracting insects to the ship. I am all for that.