At Sea

March 29^th, 2024

We are in the tropics, and there is no mistaking that.

It is hot, cloudy and muggy, and rather better suited for sitting in a lounge indoors than lying out on deck. Today air conditioning is our friend.

The water is fairly calm, and the ship hardly feels like it is moving at all. It’s almost like we are staying in a rather nice hotel.

I devoted the day trying to catch up with work that I had been putting off for a couple of weeks, I admire people who can sit and work at their computers all day. I just can’t, and frequent breaks are needed before I can move on to the next task.

We spent the morning working in Club Fusion. There are great seats there close to an outlet so  i can keep my computer charged, and I have a great view of the ocean outside, and everyone walking up and down the promenade deck. It’s not the Commodore Club, but it works for me. However, the distractions could get a bit much over time I fear.

First there is Zumba. I really should be joining in, but my excuse is that it is already so crowded there really isn’t space for another participant.

Next, as the panting masses depart clutching their water bottles, the quiz folk arrive. The quizzes on the ship are actually at my level (In what mountain range is Mount Everest? What organ in the body produces insulin?) so I really should join in, but I am not sure that the groups that have formed would accept an interloper, so I carry on fighting with my Excel spreadsheet. As the quiz crowd leaves, disputing the answer to a question, in come the bingo players and the queen of bingo, Fortuna Luck.

Fortuna Luck and her side kick, our Spanish teacher Amparo, have way too much energy, and it is infectious. Everyone playing bingo seems to be having a great time, but no one is yet to win the snowball jackpot, whatever that may be. However, it does seem to be the common goal.

As the bingo players move on to the casino, in come the line dancers. Now, here is something I do enjoy. The Electric Slide is definitely my sort of pace. However, there seems to be little difference these days between Zumba and line dancing. The dances involve a multitude of steps, much more than just tapping to the right and tapping to the left, and they are way too complicated. Apparently there are 5 main line dance steps: 1. Grapevine · 2. Weave · 3. Scoot · 4. Brush · 5. Kick. However, they seem to be doing many more steps than that, and are waving their arms in the air and shouting out “yee haw” rather loudly. Today I got quite excited at they did the Macarena. Now there’s another dance that I can do well. I wish they would do the Time Warp, but does that really count as a line dance?

The final morning activity is the dance class, and today they learned the jive. I would have loved to participate, but I could see that Brian did not share my enthusiasm. Oh well, maybe next time.

As the dance class was ending, it was time for lunch. Despite all of the distractions I had managed to get quite a lot of work done. There is more to do, but that’s for another day.

We had lunch by the pool. They do a very good vegetarian pizza, so while my heathy husband has a salad and fruit, I enjoy a huge slice of pizza. Life is good.

There was a stall selling sunscreen, hats, and water bottles by the pool. Good marketing as everyone looked like they were slowly baking in the heat. The sun may be hidden by the cloud cover, but I am sure there are fierce UV rays out there as well.

We are at 11 degrees north and passing through the Guatemala Basin, heading into the trade winds. A bit of wind may actually go down well, the heat and humidity are fierce outside. We left the pool after lunch and retreated back into the air conditioning.

We haven’t actually gone to a single talk or activity today, but that is fine. That’s why I love sea days. You can be as active or as lazy as you like. Some days I simply chose the latter.

When Brian went to work out, I decided to see if things had improved outside. They certainly had. I sat on a deck chair on the promenade deck, enjoying reading my book and watching the passers by.

Although there is no teak decking on the promenade deck, I do think it is quite acceptable.

It is narrow in places, but it is also quite wide in others. It is lovely to stroll around the promenade deck in the late afternoon, although you do have to be careful to get out of the way of the runners who will stop at nothing.

I stood and watched the wake for a bit.

But it is noisy, and then headed to the bow to see what the sun was up to. I was not alone. There were several photographers with very heavy duty equipment up there as well. I couldn’t work out what they were doing there. I mean it didn’t look like we would have a great green flash, but I suppose you never know.

It looked like a good evening to watch the sunset anyway, and no, there was no green flash, the sun just gradually faded into the clouds, but standing at the front of the ship, enjoying the gentle breeze, it really didn’t matter. Every sunset is special when you are at sea.

Tonight’s production show is the last show for the current cast of singers and dancers. It was called Born to be Wild. We were impressed with the pink Cadillac prop. It looked great. The show was excellent. I am sure that the singers and dancers must have mixed feelings about the end of their contracts and moving on, but they certainly put a lot of effort and energy into the production and did an excellent job. I wish them all the best when they disembark in Los Angeles.