We’re still here sailing NE toward South Georgia. Our weather changes nearly from one moment to the next. Within an hour we can have dense fog, bright sunshine, a snow flurry or rain. The only constant is that it is cold, around 39°. Does it sound blasé to say even icebergs aren’t too exciting anymore? We just sailed past one a few minutes ago and it no longer makes me want to rush to try to get a photo.
We’ve been without internet connection for nearly two days now and we’re all discovering how much we are hooked on it, both crew and passengers. In fact, I think some folks are even getting a little testy about being cut off. I’ve been cruising for enough years that I still think it’s remarkable that we can get online, but I too would like to be able to check e-mails. The captain knows that the natives are getting restless because in his noon update he addressed it. Whatever he said was deemed baloney by a couple of my teammates who are recently retired IT people. Oh, well, I’m here on a lovely ship being well-taken care of so I’m okay.
Since I don’t have anything exciting to talk about, I thought I’d tell you about some of the interesting characters I’ve met. There’s a couple on my trivia team who retired from doing something in telecom. They sold their house, put whatever they didn’t get rid of in storage and began traveling around the country, but not in an RV. They rent a furnished house for 6 months someplace and see all the sights. When they’ve had enough, they move on. Currently they’re iiving in Annapolis, but shortly after they get home they’re moving to someplace in New England. They’re modern nomads. My dinner companion one night worked on the first Hubble telescope project. Last night I sat next to a British gentleman who retired from a job as an engineer going around the world doing soundings to find potential oil fields in the ocean. At lunch I sat with a couple in which the gentleman came down to this part of the world 15 years ago as a photographer for some science magazine. He said they came on a Russian ship and spent a week on South Georgia photographing penguins, seals and birds. One couple I’ve dined with a few times had a son who was a movie director. When I asked what movies he had directed she named one of my favorite “fluffy” romance movies, Letters to Juliet. Sadly her son died of a brain tumor very young when only in his forties.
Most nights I’ve dined at hosted tables and most have been interesting. Tonight was one of the few exceptions. I sat at the cruise director’s table with six other passengers. On either side of me I had a mother and son who were lovely. She lives in Reno (she’s in her 90’s!) and her son goes between Idaho and South Africa. (Now there’s a combination.) He’s a medical doctor specializing in epidemiology, and he was much nicer than Dr. Fauci. He told me a story that convinced me I wouldn’t want to live in South Africa. He said he has mango trees near his house and monkeys come and steal the mangoes and take them to the roof where they eat what they want and leave the remains. Then the rats come and eat the leftovers after which the snakes come to eat the rats. If you know how I feel about snakes, you can imagine the horror I felt at that.
Anyway, they were very nice and my friend was at the table too. But then there was the couple you never want to dine with. She was very LOUD and a retired dietician. She proceeded to tell us how many calories everything on the menu had in it. When she finished with that she and her husband proceeded to tell us in great detail, loudly, about their travels across America in their RV. A couple of times when I looked across the table my friend rolled her eyes, and Jan, the cruise director was struggling to find a way to involve the rest of us in conversation. It was a relief when Jan said she had to go to introduce tonight’s guest performer and we could all make our excuses to leave.
Fortunately, I will probably never have to dine with them again, and most of the people I’ve met have been very interesting. Well, that’s all for tonight. Assuming the weather gods are with us, tomorrow we’ll be in South Georgia and be able to go ashore. No photos today. Fog isn't very interesting.
1 comment:
Good luck tomorrow and I had to laugh at tail about your dinner companions.
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