April 15th

At Sea

It was a dark and stormy day.

When I awoke this morning we were finally experiencing some pitching and rolling. Nothing too major, but at least we know we are on the ocean and not on a river cruise. It really had been feeling like the latter so far. I am happy with the extra motion, but I do feel sorry for those passengers for whom pitching and rolling are a problem.

The weather was not conducive to sitting by the pool, so we went to the Commodore Club to catch up on emails and read. The place was packed. They now serve coffee and donuts there, which seem to be a great success. I was happy to have my Coke and sit watching the passing storms go by. There really is quite a swell, but as always our magnificent ship is handling it very well.

I finished my book, Americanah by my favorite Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and started Cry of the Fish Eagle by Peter Rimmer, an English author who now lives in South Africa. I am enjoying reading African themed books as we sail across the Indian Ocean to South Africa, visiting African islands on the way.

Down in the Royal Court Theatre Nicki Chapman gave a talk on “My life in the Music Industry”, and this was followed by Gavin Robinson speaking on “Game Capture Techniques in Southern Africa”. I know that game capture is a very important part of wild life conservation, but it still seemed to be very hard on the animals. It also looks like it is very hard on the humans too – he kept on showing us photos of helicopter and plane crashes. One thing that looked like a good idea was the capture and release of rhinos to remove their horns carefully and thus avoid poachers taking them, but apparently it doesn’t really work. When the poachers realize they have found a hornless rhino they feel very annoyed, and kill the animal anyway. There just doesn’t seem to be a good economical solution to keeping rhinos safe.

At her noon announcement the Captain talked about the ship’s fuel consumption. Queen Elizabeth does 58 feet per gallon. And I thought my car consumption wasn’t good.

In the afternoon there was an “African Interest Corner” for people who had “lived and worked in Central Africa, especially Kenya, Zambia, and Zimbabwe”. Well I didn’t know that my country of birth, Kenya, was in Central Africa, but we went along anyway. There was actually quite a crowd from several African countries, including Madagascar and Nigeria. I though this was going to be a discussion of how much better things used to be in Africa, but interestingly enough the conversation focused on whether British colonialism had helped or harmed the developing countries. It was quite a lively discussion, with several different opinions expressed in a very respectful manner.

Gavin Robinson, one of today’s speakers, and his wife Jacky were at the meeting, and turned out to be fellow Zimbabweans. We met up with them later for pre dinner drinks in the Commodore Club. It was fascinating learning all about their life dealing with wild life conservation, and coping with the current situation in Zimbabwe. It made us seriously consider Zimbabwe for our next safari.

We have now been on the ship for several weeks and I have failed to drag Brian on to the dance floor. However, after dinner I was able to talk Brian into going to the Party Night with Synergy in the Queens Room. We actually had a good time dancing, and I thought it was great fun. We also enjoyed people watching. There was one couple whose dancing was very acrobatic, and quite unusual. We tried to stay out of their way, as there was a good risk of being injured if one came to close. There was also a gentleman wearing a red bowler hat. I’m not sure how he kept it on his head with his unique dance moves. One must not forget the young couple who were dancing in a very suggestive manner. Quite naughty really. Usually people watching in the Queens Room does not get this interesting.

With a lot of effort I managed to keep Brian on the dance floor until 11:30 when there was the balloon drop. It really is rather silly to watch all of those middle aged people batting balloons around the room, but I think it is tremendous fun. I took one balloon back to our cabin. It popped in the middle of the night, very scary.