August 10^th

At Sea (Baffin Bay)

I went up to the Constellation Lounge to do some work this morning. This is the equivalent of the Observation Bar or Commodore Club on other ships. It is where I like to hang out and work on sea days.

Horrors, by 9:00 AM all of the window tables were taken. Everyone was sitting there quietly reading or watching the world go by through their binoculars. There was a table available further back, but with us sailing in Baffin Bay I wanted to get a front row seat to what was happening outside the ship.

However, I was thankful that there was no background music. On all of the other ships in the equivalent bar there has been a constant playlist of OK music, but several weeks into your cruise it really does become quite tiresome. There was blissful silence today. This is good.

I could not linger there long as it turned out. I had a busy morning planned. We had a meeting with Max who leads the Image Masters photography program. He talked about camera settings and how to organize your photos, I think. It all went way over my head, but Brian was listening intently and taking notes. I still have to work out how to use my video camera which I have had for years, so it all wasn’t particularly relevant.

Our trivia team was severely depleted as there was a wine tasting luncheon coinciding with trivia today. Only 4 of the 10 of us were available. Not to worry, 6 other folks were in search of a team, so we all joined together. For some random reason we called ourselves Artificial Intelligence. We did really well, but ended up 10 points short of a victory. Olivia proudly displayed the winner’s prize – a Seabourn umbrella.

Oh well, there is always another day.

After a busy morning out and about, I finally managed to get back to our cabin, and saw that yesterday’s towel creature elephant

Had not disappeared into the ether but was alive and well and living on the back of our sofa. Well, I assume he is here for the duration. I do love elephants, but maybe Esther, our wonderful room attendant, can make us a puffin or two.

The afternoon was filled with “conversations”. There is so much to learn about this part of the world. It’s difficult to get a nap around here.

One of the unique things that Seabourn does near the beginning of cruises is have a block party. Everyone leaves their cabins and stands in the corridor meeting and greeting their neighbors, fortified with champagne and canapes. We have never found forever friends this way, but it is fun to chat with the neighbors. The conversations usually revolve around where are you from and how many Seabourn cruises have you been on, but when you hear someone’s loo flush in the middle of the night, it’s nice to know that you know something about them.

We had really loved Wendy Law at her first show, so we were excited that she was back again for tonight’s show – this time accompanied by guitarist Jim Hodson, who turned out to be her partner. Here I was thinking that they had just met on board and how nice was it that they were going to do a show together. No, they have been a team for some time.

As it turned out they were fantastic – they are both so talented and the music they made together was amazing – from Vivaldi to Queen, they totally nailed it. Here we are in the middle of Baffin Bay getting first class entertainment. Not bad at all for an expedition cruise.