November 13 - Myrina, Lemnos, Greece

Today we are off the little island of Lemnos, a Greek island in the north Aegean Sea.  The little town we’re near is Myrina and to go ashore we have to tender.  It’s been drizzling all morning so I think most of us have stayed onboard.  I was here last year and there really is not much to see.  On top of that, the season for the Greek islands is over so many things are closed anyway.  If it clears up later I may go ashore just to say I did but I don’t feel any great compulsion to do so.  Here are a couple of pictures I took late in the afternoon.  Except for the little town of Myrina there's not a lot there.

I wrote about it last time I was here but it’s an interesting story so I’ll tell it again.  In Greek mythology Lemnos is the island where Hephaestus, the god of metallurgy, fell to Earth when Zeus cast him from Olympus. As the myth goes Hephaestus built his forge here and occasionally fire would blaze forth from one of the mountains.  The island no longer has any volcanic activity but it makes for a nice story.  Archaeologists have found ruins of the oldest human settlement in the Aegean here dating back as far as the 12th millennium BC.  That makes our 400-year history in Virginia barely a blink of the eye.

This morning I went to Seabourn Square, the central place on the ship where there’s a coffee bar that rivals anything Starbucks does with the intention of checking e-mails.  I ran into two ladies I met on my cruise around the UK and we spent an hour or so chatting.  I think both of them are going to be on a portion of my next cruise.  At breakfast I ran into several staff members I have sailed with before.  I’m always so impressed that they remember names so well, especially because they see so many people from cruise to cruise. I wish I had that ability; sadly, I can remember faces but not names.

It's later and I never did go ashore.  Hilary and I had lunch in the sushi restaurant.  It was absolutely wonderful.  At lunchtime they serve several kinds of Bento boxes.  I picked the chicken teriyaki one.  I attempted to use the chopsticks but I had to break down and get a fork.  We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting outside, drinking Aperol spritzes and talking with a very nice Australian couple. At four the Aussies and I went down to play trivia.  We joined three people from the UK so we should have done well, but we didn’t.  It wasn’t our day.  Here’s a question for you to think about.  True or false a sloth takes five days to digest his food.  I’ll let you know the answer on another day

My Teriyaki Chicken Bento Box

It's very late but I wanted to get this posted so I didn't wind up being behind.  It was a formal night and everyone looked quite nice but times have changed.  I saw very few men wearing tuxes and not many women wearing real formal wear. I think most people just don't want to pack as many things as they used to.  We did get notified that our stops in Aqaba, Jordan and Sharm el Sheikh have been canceled.  I know there are some disappointed people because Aqaba is the port from which you can visit Petra (of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade fame).  Those places are pretty close to where the fighting is so I'm sure Seabourn didn't want to chance being that near.  Instead we're stopping at Muscat, the capital of Oman, and another one of the UAE emirates.  It was a lazy but very nice day.