At Sea

January 2^nd, 2025

Another calm, hot and humid day. We really are in the tropics now.

I spent the morning indoors, appreciating the air conditioning.

The highlight of the morning was the cooking demonstration where Chef Mario, who is usually in the Colonnade, showed us how to make cuttle fish and squid ink risotto.

Now this is not a dish I expect to make at home. I have enough trouble finding shallots in our local supermarket, so cuttlefish and squid ink might be a problem. I looked to see if I could buy some on Amazon. Well, there wasn’t any cuttlefish ink, but there was squid ink powder, Black Hut Squid Ink (6.4OZ / 180g) bundle with Squid Ink Waffle Mix.

However, the squid ink powder and squid ink waffle mix are currently unavailable. I was trying to imagine what squid ink waffle mix would taste like, and so I lost track of what Chef Mario was saying except I did catch him recommending that when we buy our liquid squid ink we need to check that the writing on the packet was in Italian and not Chinese. That got my mind wandering off on another tangent as to what he imagined the contents of a Chinese squid ink package would be.

All in all, I missed quite a lot of the presentation, but I did learn that if you add a pinch of salt to onions when you are browning them they do not caramelize and burn.

Nick always makes these presentations lively and it was fun to watch Chef Mario and Chef Ainsley at work.

I must say that the end result didn’t look that enticing, but maybe it will taste OK.

I did take a copy of the recipe just in case I want to try it at home, minus the octopus.

We spent the afternoon by the deck 5 pool again.

I do love the 2-seater clam shell loungers.

They are really cozy on windy days, and it is so easy to talk to each other.

You can keep an eye on who is walking on the promenade deck.

And they have a little table in the middle where you can put your phone and glasses and a drink if you are lucky enough to have one.

As there is no bar at the pool, my wonderfully thoughtful friend brought me an ice cold Coke, which saved me a trip to the deck 8 pool bar. That’s what friends are for.

I did notice a man on the phone. I wonder if you call room service, would they bring you a drink? I monitored his activities for the next half hour, but no provisions arrived in his vicinity.

After a wonderful afternoon by the pool, I checked back at the shop to see if there was an update on their order of Mary Frances handbags. I love Mary Frances handbags, although I know some people think they are the height of tackiness. The shop assistant had said they were getting a new order of handbags in when we were in Cape Town, but they missed the boat. I was checking to see if they will indeed catch the boat on our stop in Cape Town later this month. No one seems to know the fate of the bags so I will just have to wait and see. The bag they have on show is even too over the top for me, although I do appreciate the champagne bottle.

Now the Hermes scarf in the next window is more my style!

They served an Indian dinner in the Colonnade tonight.

Brian settled on chicken tikka for his appetizer

But I decided I just had to try the risotto despite my misgivings about it.

Hmmmm. I think Brian did better than I did.

The entertainer tonight was another pianist, Rustem Hayroundinoff. I checked out his discography and most of his recordings were Rachmaninoff pieces. Now I like Rachmaninoff as much as the next person, but somehow he is a composer I can only take in small doses after a large dinner. Give me Mozart. Give me Schumann please. Chopin would go down very nicely, thank you.

However, although he did play 2 short Rachmaninoff pieces, he also played some Gershwin and Chopin so despite my concerns it turned out to be a really lovely concert.

I returned to our suite to check out tomorrow’s program. For our original itinerary we were due to stop on Bom Bom island. I had received a spreadsheet from the marketing folks at Seabourn, describing our day on the island “Seabourn signature beach barbecue event featuring caviar, lobster, and champagne in a secluded beach paradise while wading in crystal clear, turquoise water”. Wow, I had thought, I can so handle that.

Well, Bom Bom island was cancelled so I searched our revised itinerary to see which port would be chosen for the beach barbecue instead. Ilha de Mozambique seemed to be an obvious choice. Here was a tropical island with plenty of palm trees and beaches. I checked out the tours. There were very few, and they all returned to the ship in the morning. Of course, our beach barbecue would be there.

We had heard nothing about this officially, and I thought Nick was keeping it as a wonderful surprise. I eagerly grabbed tomorrow’s program to read the details, but there was nothing about a beach barbecue. Not a single mention of one. There was a caviar and Bublé event for our sail away, but that was the excitement for the day.

So it seems no beach barbecue tomorrow. Hopefully they will choose another port for this signature event. Fingers crossed.