At sea

Today dawned dark and stormy, not what we had expected at all. However, with a full schedule of talks and activities lined up for the day, we would not be able to spend much time sunbathing by the pool anyway.

We are experiencing a bit of pitching and rolling, the first we have experienced since Fort Lauderdale. You really know you are at sea today.

At 11:00 there was ‘Ready, Steady, Cook” where the QV’s Chef Patissier, Renato Dizon, and Chef de Cuisine, Frank Mark showed off their culinary skills and sense of humor, while simultaneously producing amazing food in front of our eyes. They had a sort of mobile kitchen on stage in the theater, and we sat in one of the boxes at the front of the theater so we had a great view of their activities. Lucky audience members got to taste the results of their efforts, but there were chocolate truffels to be eaten by everyone at the end, so all was well.

Brian stayed in the theater to listen to a talk by Brigadier Hugh Willing on the “Battles of Coronel and the Falklands 1914”. He thoroughly enjoyed the talk. It was a part of British Naval history that never came up in “O” level history, so I had never heard of it, nor had Brian, who is much better read than I am.

I decided to exchange education for the Craft Corner, and have embarked on constructing a patchwork stuffed owl. It is very cute in the picture; mine has not attained such a level on cuteness, and does look very homemade.

There was sushi for lunch in the Lido. Not up to the standard of Blue Sushi back home, but certainly acceptable, and a change from my usual lunch.

Although we have crossed the equator several times already on this trip, today was the official Crossing of the Line ceremony. The kitchen had prepared several containers of brightly coloured gunk and spaghetti for the occasion. King Neptune and his Queen, and the Seaweed Court were there to pass judgment on the Pollywogs for various deeds. Everyone was found guilty, and was covered with the gunk. As we are now out of the Amazon they decided it was OK for them to jump in the pool to wash off, and the pool will now be emptied and cleaned, and filled again. Brian was a brave Pollywog, and got completely covered in the revolting looking mixture. He is officially now a Shellback, and has a certificate to say so.

To celebrate the crossing of the line, the drink of the day is Pimms. A very good idea! We continued our experiments on which way water was draining out of the sink. I am sorry to say they were a total failure. There was no consistent pattern to the drainage despite us taking several readings. Maybe we were too close to the equator for our results to be valid, we shall continue in our quest tomorrow.

At dinner we discovered that 2 of our tablemates had been on the same Baltic cruise as us on QE in June of 2012. They had also had a very good cruise, and we reminisced about how the scheduled show by the Red Arrows never occurred due to the weather, and how the fireworks were rained out. Well that’s British summer for you.

We all headed off to the show after dinner. The featured entertainer was Johnny Stafford, who played the harmonica. I didn’t think it was a very good show, but then you can’t always please everybody.