At sea

December 5^th, 2024

There was a bridge tour today, but we were too late signing up for it, so we hope there will be another one. I do love bridge tours and seeing how the electronics on the bridge have changed so dramatically over the years. In 1962 I had to opportunity to steer the original Queen Elizabeth with a wheel that was almost as tall as me, now they just have a joystick, and it looks like you are playing a video game. I will have to make sure that we get to sign up in good time for the next tour.

Although we are supposed to be heading south to warmer sunny weather, it is still rather overcast outside. Because of the deck in front of the Observation Bar you really can’t see over the bow of the ship, but it is still great to look outside and watch our progress through the Atlantic Ocean.

No Christmas decorations as yet inside the Bar, but the pointsettias still look great.

Today there was the Fun Fair on Deck. Different departments on the ship had stalls on the pool deck and it was great fun.

The shop had a stall where you had to guess the total cost of all of the items on the tray, and the person with the best guess gets to win them all. There were some great things there – especially the water bottle (we left ours at home) and a tanzanite ring. I thought my guess was too high, but as it turned out this was way too low. So I didn’t get to take the contents home alas.

I thought we would have better luck at the name the flag desk, but again we didn’t do so well. I like to think that I am quite up on flags of the world, but there were several that I couldn’t recognize. So we didn’t win that one.

There was a sort of beer pong table. We didn’t participate.

A fun stall was the housekeeping one where the challenge was to see how fast you could put a pillowcase on a pillow. I didn’t even attempt this; I struggle with the pillowcases at home. I don’t need to do this at sea.

Then there was miniature golf,

And a bean bag toss.

The navigation department had a sextant on show

And Brian got to try to plot where we were in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. He wasn’t too far off!

All in all we had a great time. Although overcast, it was warm out on deck and pleasant to be outdoors after being inside for the most part on our previous sea days.

I spotted a little duck on deck 5. On Princess we were inundated with ducks and duck hunters. This was the first duck I have seen on Seabourn.

We spent most of the rest of the day in the talks, including the port talk for our Cape Verde Islands stops.

We have avoided the port talks on previous cruises as they really seemed to focus on shopping and just the ship’s tours.

Chris gave a wonderful presentation, with details and maps showing where the shuttle bus went to, and what you could walk to from the shuttle bus stop. As well as the highlights to see on the islands. Very informative.

We ordered caviar for a snack before dinner. It was great. We will definitely do this again.

They have excellent petit fours after dinner – yummy!

Finally we went to hear Ricardo Afonso again. He has an amazingly powerful voice, and absolutely fills the room with his singing. He is also very good at engageing the audience, and everyone had a great time. He will be disembarking in Cape Verde, so this was his final performance. I have really enjoyed him.

When we returned to our suite there were 2 $50 vouchers for the spa. Yay! Time to book a pedicure. Not that $50 will go that far paying for it, but it is a start…….

Wow, another busy day at sea is over. It has all been quite exhausting, and I still haven’t had a chance to work on my tablecloth. Although there are some large waves and white horses out there, there is still minimal movement on the ship. No chance of being rocked to sleep yet again. But I just know I will sleep well any way. The beds are really comfortable.