Today is
the first of three sea days before we reach our next stop in Rarotonga. We crossed the Equator around 5:15 this
morning so we are now in the Southern Hemisphere. We did our usual sea day routine of getting
up around eight or eight-thirty and having a quick, light breakfast in the
Neptune Lounge before starting the day’s activities. The first thing on our agenda was a talk on
Raiatea, our next stop after Rarotonga by Travel Guide, Julia. As usual, her talk was very informative. She is a very good speaker and gives an
interesting talk. After Julia there was
a talk by Dr. Ken Longenecker, a marine biologist who is onboard as a guest
lecturer. His lecture today was on the
discovery of deep coral reefs (at about 300 feet below the sea surface) that no
one knew existed until recently.
After that
talk it was time for lunch and today we were meeting some of our new shipboard
friends in the main dining room. We had
a great time with Ken and Cathy, Mark and Shirley, and Stan and Deanna, as they
are all very interesting people and we enjoyed talking with them. One thing we have noticed on this cruise is
how well travelled most people are, not just cruises (which most have done
many), but travel all over the world. We
have added several things to our travel to-do list from talking to other people
onboard. Also, most of the people we’ve
met are retired or at least semi-retired and it has been very interesting to
talk them about their former careers.
After
lunch, Val was off to trivia and I went back to the room to start the process
of preparing the pictures and writing the Fanning Island blog post. That was difficult as Fanning Island was so
interesting to us and we had many photos to sort through. I made some headway, but at 3:00 they were
having a show put on by the crew that we wanted to attend. The Holland American crew is mainly
Indonesian so the show featured music and dance of their home cultures. It was a great show, and there is a lot of
talent on the ship. They do this on their
own time and it was greatly appreciated by the full-house audience.
After the
show, I went back to work on the blog with Val’s help and then decided to get
some exercise on the Promenade Deck.
When I went out to start my walk though, some of the deck crew were
washing and polishing the deck so a walk was impossible. It was back to the room to relax until
dinner. The food continues to be
excellent on this trip and tonight was no exception. Others we have talked to have agreed that the
food seems to be above average on this cruise.
As usual we finished the night in the casino before returning to our
room.
The weather
was beautiful today with mostly clears skies and towering clouds in the distance. We were treated to another beautiful sunset
as you can see below. Life is good on
the Westerdam, but going by much too quickly.
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