At Sea

January 20^th, 2025

I spent the morning in the Observation Bar as usual.

There is a guest who spends the morning practicing the piano there. No one seems to mind, and as far as I am concerned when she is playing you cannot hear the usual music in the Bar. They have had the same play list since we have embarked, and it was beginning to get a bit annoying, so her playing is nice for a change.

It is also getting to be more and more difficult to secure the seat I like by the only usable outlet in the room as more people discover the Observation Bar. It’s nice to see the room being used, but it makes using my computer more of a challenge. My computer is unfortunately on its last legs, and the battery life is slowly fading away. I do wish they had more outlets in the public spaces.

This morning out on the deck in front of the Bar a group had gathered and were surveying the scene around them through their binoculars. We had not seen any birds today, so I wandered if they were searching for whales and dolphins. They didn’t seem to be getting excited about anything, so I assumed that there was not much to see out there. However, we will be getting closer to where the dolphins and whales hang out, so hopefully we will see some soon.

We decided to spend the afternoon by the pool on deck 5. We realized that it was going to be windy as soon as we stepped on to the promenade deck. Sure enough the wind was blowing quite fiercely by the pool. But we were able to take shelter in one of the clam loungers. They are great for windy days, although Brian did have to hold on to my champagne glass to prevent it from flying away.

Not only was it windy at the back of the ship, but there was a fair amount of movement going on as well. The water in the pool was sloshing around, so I decided to forgo my swim and remain on the relative safety of dry land.

The hot tub didn’t look that safe either, the water kept on splashing out all over the deck.

Still it was nice to be out in the fresh air for a while.

By the time the sun was getting ready to set the wind had died down a bit, and although we were certainly not going to be treated to a green flash, at least there was a bright glow in the sky.

As the night wore on the wind and the waves caused more and more movement on the ship. We were at a hosted table for dinner with one of the speakers, Zelda Le Grange (who used to be Nelson Mandela’s private secretary), and we could certainly feel it every time we hit a big wave and the ship shuddered. The fact that the lights were also flickering was a bit disconcerting, but then they have been flickering since we embarked, so it must not be a serious problem. Despite the movement of the ship, the wait staff were pros, and no dishes or glasses went flying. However, it did make for an interesting meal.

Nick gave another wonderful performance tonight; we always enjoy his singing.

The rocking and rolling of the ship continued as we went to bed. It was bliss. Finally after over 50 days we are getting to experience some real movement. Yay!