Wednesday
Day 11 – At Sea
That’s
right, we’ve skipped Tuesday, we crossed the International Dateline so there is
no Tuesday this week, and we will not have an April 16h at all. After a light breakfast we were off to hear the
next in a series of talks on our upcoming port stops, this morning it was for
Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. These
talks are very interesting and very well attended, if you don’t get there
early, you won’t find a seat. The
showroom holds 925 so you can see how popular these talks are. Val is interested in buying some pearls on
this trip so after the Rarotonga talk we were off to the Queen’s Lounge for a
seminar on pearls. Even though it was
put on by a group trying to sell us pearls, they provided a lot of background
information on how pearls are formed, what different types of pearls there are
and how to judge the quality of pearls.
It was actually quite interesting.
After
learning about pearls it was just about time for lunch so we headed for the
Lido buffet. Val had her team trivia at
1:15 so after lunch she went on to that and I went back to the room and did
some reading out on the balcony. Val’s
trivia team is continuing to do well and seems to end up in the top 3 or 4 each
day, but first place has been elusive.
Still, pretty good since there are 32 teams. Today they tied for first place, but lost the
tie-breaker.
The weather
was very nice with fairly mild temperatures, but the humidity continues to
increase. It was mostly sunny, but we
ran through a series of rain squalls which passed quickly and mostly missed the
ship. Here are a couple of pictures of
what sea days are like from the balcony, nothing but ocean and sky. Unless you’re coming into a port, you never
see land and we’ve only seen one other ship since we’ve left San Diego.
 |
| Our typical view on a sea day. |
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| We dodged numerous rainfalls through the late afternoon. |
At lunch
today we ran into a Ken and Cathy, a couple that we stood in line with in San
Diego waiting to board the ship (that line took so long you got to know the
people around you pretty well) and they asked us to join them in the Crow’s
Nest for Happy Hour. After doing not
much of anything most of the afternoon we went to the Crow’s Nest to meet them
and were surprised to find another couple we stood in line with as well as the
friends Ken and Cathy were traveling with.
They were all really nice people and we enjoyed talking and getting to
know everyone until it was time for the early dinner seating when they had to
leave. Before everyone left we made
plans to meet for lunch in couple of days, we’re looking forward to that.
Val and I
returned to our room and I decided to walk again and try to at least burn off a
little of all the good food I’ve been eating.
I intended to walk two miles again, but the high humidity sent me back
inside after a mile and a third (4 laps around the ship). After that it was time to clean up and get
ready for the evening’s entertainment and dinner. The show tonight was comedian Richie
Minervini. I had never heard of him, but
he was quite funny and we really enjoyed the show. We finished the evening in our usual fashion
with a great dinner and time in the casino.
We are really looking forward to our stop in Fanning Island tomorrow,
our first of the South Pacific Islands.
I want to
add that I find it interesting that Holland America tries to find ways to
connect people together. I was happy to
see on the schedule for each day informal gatherings planned for a wide variety
of people. There are meetings for AA,
LGBT, nondenominational church service, Catholic mass, military veterans, and singles. Then there are several more set times for people
with different hobbies and interests like bridge, and needle crafts to get
together. It’s nice to see the diversity and inclusiveness.
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