November 11 - A Remembrance Day at Sea

It’s time to catch up again.  My friends boarded around 1:00 PM  on Saturday the 9th and we had a pizza party reunion on the pool deck.  It was good catching up with everyone I hadn’t seen in several months. They had to unpack and I spent the afternoon doing pretty much nothing.  I confess I did actually doze off at one point.  I must be getting old.

We were supposed to sail away from Miami at 5:30 PM and we even had a party on deck to mark the occasion. There was just one problem – we didn’t sail away.  When it was time for dinner we were still at the dock. During dinner we moved, but it turned out we only moved to a different berth because a Canadian Navy vessel needed our spot.  We quickly tied up again.  So, what was the problem? My dinner host was the perfect source of information.  He was Radu, a very tall Rumanian First Engineer in charge of keeping all the mechanics of the ship operating. No, we didn’t have a mechanical issue.

I don’t remember mentioning that a new concessionaire would be operating the shops on the ship, but that was the cause of the delay.  The truck carrying all the new merchandise was late.  We didn’t sail until around 3:30 AM.  It cost someone, presumably the vendor, a lot of money, because it had to pay for the extra berthing time and the longshoremen and line workers who hung around waiting to load the merchandise and let loose the lines when we finally were ready to go.  Apparently this was the last opportunity to restock the stores until LA on the 27th of November.

Yesterday was a sea day with lectures and classes.  I went to an art class in the morning.  I painted a masterpiece which later in the day I showed Katie when we had Facetime.  I asked her to guess what it was and her first guess was a moose.  She got it on her second try. It was a bumblebee.  Moose, bumblebee. I don’t think I have a late in life career as an artist in my future.   After art I attended a lecture by a Marine Archaeologist about the Titanic.  More about him later. We played trivia at noon with a whole new group and we basically bombed, but that’s okay.  It is only a game.

Last night I dined with the fabulous guest entertainer, Michael Lynche.  He performed before we got to Miami and he is wonderful and a truly nice person.  It was a fun table and we laughed a lot.  After dinner we had an Australian Japanese rock violinist who did an interesting and energetic show.  He was good but I really enjoyed the violinist we had on the last leg of the cruise a little more.

As usual I went down to the club and stayed until close to midnight and did a little dancing. I was missing my Russian-Cuban friends who got off in Miami.  I’ll have to find some new dance partners.

Today we had two minutes of silence at 11 AM to remember Armistice Day, Veterans’ Day in the US and Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth countries. It is always marked on the ship and sometimes there is a little more ceremony with a reading of “In Flanders Field.”  There was a lecture which I missed and then it was time for team trivia again.  We improved our score, but still were pretty abysmal.

At lunch outside we could see land far off in the distance.  We think it’s the southeastern tip of Cuba because during his noon report the captain told us we’d transited the Windward Passage between Cuba and the island of Hispaniola and entered the Caribbean Sea.  I took a picture at maximum zoom thinking I might get the bit of land.  Instead, I’m pretty sure what I got was a photo of a freighter. The seas are moderate but we’re still doing a little rocking.  We are on a ship after all.

Tonight is a formal night and I had an invitation to dine at a hosted table but two of my friends and I decided to decline and eat outside by the pool at the venue called Earth and Ocean in the evenings.  The other two don’t like to dress up.  I don’t mind that but I really don’t care for the “signature” menu they have on formal nights.  It always includes too many rich sauces which I don’t like very much.  It should be a nice evening to dine outside.

Yesterday and today I sat at breakfast with the conversationalist I mentioned earlier, Dr. Tim Runyan, and his wife Laurie.  Besides being very nice people, they are very interesting.  They’re from Greensboro, NC  and he is a retired professor from East Carolina University.  He has spent a lot of time in Newport News at the Mariners’ Museum because he was part of the team that worked on raising and preserving the Monitor off the North Carolina Coast.  He knows Robert Ballard who located the wreck of the Titanic and has fascinating stories to tell.  I am so fortunate to be able to hear and meet people like him.

I don't have any exciting photos so I'll include one of my favorite barista at Seabourn Square.  He's Emin from Istanbul and he makes me the best Caramel and Mocha Lattes.  He's been very busy on these sea days so I caught him in action.

November 9 - Miami Redux

Yesterday, November 8th we stopped for three hours at Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas and the main reason I think was so they could have Caviar in the Surf, a Seabourn signature event. For sun and sand people it was a great stop.  Since I’m neither and I can get caviar, which I do love, anywhere on the ship I stayed onboard again.  I guess I’m getting to be one of those old ladies you hear or read about who just stays on a ship endlessly. The island is absolutely flat as you can see, but the water looked exquisite and friends told me the beach was beautiful. 

Half Moon Cay

The last eight days haven’t been exciting ones in terms of seeing new places, but I’ve had a lot of fun and that’s more important to me at this stage of my life.  I only set foot on land briefly in San Juan and spent the rest of the time enjoying being on the ship and meeting new people.  In the last 22 days I’ve met wonderful folks from states I’ve never been to like Idaho and Colorado.  I’ve had interesting discussions with people from all sides of the political spectrum and we haven’t gotten angry and  we parted as friends.  I’ve made a new lifelong friend in Linda from Texas.  I’ve had an opportunity to get to know Olga, born and raised in the USSR, and Carlos, born and raised in Castro’s Cuba, who married and immigrated here on a long path that took them years spent waiting in Costa Rica and Canada.  Their perspective on this country is one which many of us who were born and raised here don’t always remember and appreciate.

The upshot is that since my favorite pastime is getting to know new people and learn what they are thinking about, this has been a great three weeks.  Along the way, I’ve spent several nights dancing until midnight.  I’ve been treated like a queen by the staff and I’ve been entertained at a show every night. The most difficult decisions I’ve had to make are where and what to eat every day and I don’t have to fix any of the food.  Life is good!

Now I’m sitting in the shade by the pool watching loading of supplies on the other side of the deck.  I saw a big wheeled pallet loaded with cases of what looked like booze go by.  The group that just got off in Miami today were doing quite a bit of partying for eight days so I’m guessing supplies were low.  In a little while several of my friends will be boarding and I’m looking forward to seeing them. At least two are staying on until Sydney too so it should be fun.

The corridor where my cabin is lined with ice buckets and champagne waiting for the next group to board

Marija from Montenegro with her pretty smile.  She has been the hostess in the Colonnade and I just found out she is leaving today.  She and Patience, the hostess in the Restaurant whose photo I posted the other day, are both leaving and I'll miss them!

I’m attaching this school photo of my grandson  Katie sent me because I think he’s so cute.  I think when he gets to be a teenager he’s going to be a real lady-killer! (Can you tell I’m a proud Oma?)

Just look at those eyes and that smile!

November 7 -The day after I got rained out

First, today would have been my husband’s 77th birthday.  I’m missing him a lot today.  We usually went on a cruise around birthday times, so I’m wondering where we would have been had things been different.

When last I wrote I had taken off my dancing shoes for the night and was preparing for my outing in San Juan yesterday.  Plans don’t always turn out the way we thought they would.  It was cloudy when I awoke and docked at the next pier was the Enchanted Princess.  As I looked out the window in the Square, I could see the reflection of our smokestacks in the windows of about deck 6 on the Princess ship and there were 9 decks above those windows. I was glad I was on the Quest.  Just as I was noticing that, a great big Carnival ship docked between us.  It was like being next to a big apartment block.  Each of those ships carries roughly ten times the passengers on this ship.

After lollygagging around I got my things together and headed to the gangway to make my foray into Old San Juan. Literally just as I set foot on it, the rain started.  There are always passing showers in the Caribbean so I went down to the dock and stood under the little tent there waiting for the rain to let up.  It just rained harder and harder, so I gave up and went back up the gangway getting pretty wet on the way. So that was my shore trip in San Juan.  The sun came out intermittently but then the skies would open again and I just didn’t want to chance  going out to take some photos.  

I do have a tale to tell about one time when Al and I came here more than 30 years ago.  I think it was before we were going on our first Panama Canal cruise which began in San Juan.  We came down a few days early and we stayed in the El Convento Hotel which was right in the old city and which had been a convent in Spanish colonial days.  Unbeknownst to us, Puerto Rico was celebrating the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ first Voyage of Discovery.  He didn’t land on this island, but the celebration was here anyway.  Three exact replicas of his ships, the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria were tied up in the harbor and there were parades and fireworks and parties on the streets late into the night.  It was a magical time to be here!  Unfortunately, it was long before digital cameras and iPhones so the only photos I have are buried in a box somewhere, but I have wonderful memories to keep me company.

There was supposed to be a classical sailaway from San Juan, but because of the rain that was canceled.  Perhaps we’ll have it when we sail from Half Moon Cay tomorrow.  As we sailed out the captain informed us that we would be having rough seas and we should make sure things were secure in our cabins.  There was no view of leaving the harbor, which is usually a beautiful  sight with El Morro Castle on the point, because it was raining cats and dogs and then fog set in.  I’ll just have to come back another time.

El Morro Castle at the entrance to San Juan's harbor.  The sky didn't look like this today. I took this a couple of years ago.

This is as close as I got today using my phone at maximum zoom from the ship. Aren't iPhones great?

We had a great show last night. Handré, Director of Entertainment for Seabourn Cruises, has been on these last eight days and he performed for us.  He is an extremely talented pianist and composer and his show included his own compositions with a backdrop of the most wonderful videos of places around the world.  It was magical!  I have a very soft spot in my heart for Handré. He was the cruise director on our very first Seabourn cruise on this very ship. On top of that he is one of the absolute nicest people I’ve ever met.  I may have already written that recently; I can’t remember if I did, but it’s worth repeating.

Today we’re sailing along under sunny skies but still with rocking and rolling – not as bad as during the night.  Noon found us all in the Club for trivia.  We didn’t win today but that’s okay.  I forgot to mention that yesterday after the sailaway event was canceled we had an extra trivia game at 4 PM.  Half the team didn’t hear the announcement, but the rest of us won by a wide margin.  I have a lot of swag to give away.

That’s about it for now.  These haven’t been very exciting days, but they have been lovely for me.  One last thing.  Yesterday, November 6, was a great day to wake up to for other reasons which if you know me you can figure out and if you don't it's probably best left unsaid.

Early November 6 - Let’s Dance!

It’s very late but I had to write something else.  We played trivia late this afternoon and once again we won commandingly (the other teams may try to throw us overboard if we keep this up).  Our teammate Jean from Scotland was on fire; I’m the scribe for the team and all I needed to do was write down her answers.  She was fantastic!

Dinner was a ladies’ table with Aimée, the cruise director, and it was a lot of fun.  We celebrated Linda’s birthday with a cake.  After dinner there was a dance party on deck and of course I went.  What a good time we had!  I sat with Olga and Carlos and Olga and I did a lot of dancing.  It was hot and muggy, but then it is the Caribbean.  Just as the party was winding down, it started sprinkling.  The weather gods have been pretty good for us so far so I can’t complain.  I heard though that tomorrow our luck may end because the weather forecast for our stop in San Juan is rain, rain, rain.  Too bad; I was going to go ashore and get a cab to take me to the old forts on the north coast of old San Juan.  The shoreline there is beautiful and I wanted to take some photos. Maybe next time.

I'm not in the photo.  Maybe next time.

There is something great about being on a ship on a day like today.  It’s a pretty momentous day in the US and if we don’t want to think about it, we don’t have to.  We are in a world of our own out here, and it’s absolutely wonderful!  Something else – maybe I’ll stop getting text messages about election stuff and spam calls.  Yes, I get spam calls out here in the ocean.  At least they haven’t come in the middle of the night!  More tomorrow.

November 5 - St. Kitts

When I last wrote I was deciding what to do for dinner.  I wound up going to have the Japanese dinner in the Colonnade with Aimée, the cruise director, and her friend Rhiannon who is visiting this week on the ship. (I think it’s so nice that some staff are allowed to have family or friends come on for a short while.)  A few years ago if someone had said I’d choose to go and eat Japanese food I would have said they were nuts. I have evolved and I find I really enjoy it.  The two young women were delightful dinner companions.  Aimée is from Shropshire, England, wherever that is, and Rhiannon is from Wales with an interesting accent.  

Yesterday morning we anchored off Frenchman’s Cay, a tiny island 1 mile wide and 500 yards long attached to Tortola, BVI, by a short bridge.  Aside from a few houses on the hillside there is nothing on the island but beaches and bars.  I’m not a beach person anymore (I hate sand and I avoid being in the sun for very long), and I can get all the booze I want on the ship. So, I, along with a surprising number of my fellow passengers, stayed onboard. I did not much of anything constructive; I answered a few emails and got a couple of phone calls.  That leads me to say that I think it’s marvelous that with the ship’s Wi-Fi I can make and receive phone calls and they are like making local calls.  How neat is that?  I remember a time when Al and I went on a cruise and we rented a satellite phone for a month so we could stay in touch.  Now with Starlink and other satellites, voilà we’re connected.

These two photos are Frenchman's Cay. You can see there's not much there.

Last night’s show was Aimée’s solo show.  She has a great voice and I loved her selection of songs, more so than the guest entertainer the other night.  She did a duet with her friend with whom I dined yesterday.  They sang Somewhere over the Rainbow, with Aimée singing in English and Rhiannon in Welsh.  After the show I went down to the club as usual and there were actually other people there.  Some nights I’m by myself.  There was a nice couple named Olga, originally from Russia, married to Carlos, originally from Cuba, and Olga liked to dance too.  A mother with a twenty-something daughter named Katie came in and danced as well.  I do get up and dance by myself, but it’s always more fun when other people do too.  I left very late and didn’t turn the lights off until after two.

We’re now anchored off Carambola Beach on the island of St. Kitts.  This is the place where Seabourn does their beach barbecue. I’ve done that several times and today is an abbreviated  one – no Caviar in the Surf – which is usually included.  Once again I decided to stay on the ship.  The last time I did go there were lots of flies buzzing around attracted by the food and then there was that pesky sand.  Instead I’m catching up with more things I need to take care of.

This is St. Kitts.  Look at this house perched on top of that hill.  Their view must be spectacular!

Today is my new friend Linda’s birthday.  It’s funny how sometimes you meet someone and after a short time you feel like you have known them forever.  That’s how it’s been with her.  We think a lot alike and we’ve had some good conversations.  We’ve been on the same trivia team too.  Sadly, she’ll be getting off in Miami this coming Saturday, but I’m sure we’ll keep in touch.

Random photos.  These are Vuksan from Belgrade and Elrose from Philippines who take care of me in Guest Services

Tonight there’s going to be a deck dance party and I’ll be thinking of my friend Helga.  She would be the first one to get up and dance.  Well, that’s enough blethering for now.  Aside from today being Linda’s birthday, it’s a pretty big day for us Yanks.  I’ll be surprised if we know the outcome by day’s end. We shall see.

I love clouds so I just threw this one in.

November 3 - Lost in Time

I’ve been at sea sailing along the southern edge of the Bermuda Triangle and today  I truly began the day, lost in time.  We didn’t receive a reminder last night that where we are on the planet, we weren’t going to change from daylight to standard time.  Like many of my shipmates my apple devices all happily automatically reset to EST and we’ve all been one hour behind ship’s time.  As a result I got up and dressed too late to make breakfast.  Not to worry though, because it’s impossible to go hungry on this ship.

I don’t have any remarkable photos of exciting sights so I’ll include a few random ones just for the heck of it.

Ignore me and just focus on Patience, the wonderful hostess in the Restaurant

Katarina Rossa, the wonderful violinist who performed two shows

Miami Beach as we sailed away

My cabin attendents made this lovely rose and left it on the counter between my sinks

I decided to try catching up on my blog and got side-tracked once again.  I was sitting in my favorite corner in the Square and a friend came and sat with me.  I can’t resist conversations, so there went the morning. That’s what happened all day yesterday, our first of two sea days.

Yesterday we had our first noon trivia of this 8-day leg of my voyage.  We’re doing cumulative trivia because we have several sea days.  We finished in second place which put us in a good position for the overall winners at the end.  The seas were pretty rocky all day so my muscles had a good workout keeping me reasonably stable.  In the evening I dined with Linda from Texas who I met when we boarded in Montreal and another trivia team member who boarded in Miami on the 1st.  Dinner was good and the drinks were wonderful!   The dessert was the star of the meal. After dinner I went to the show to hear a performer named Jonathan Christopher.  He has performed on Broadway and has a great voice, but his selection of songs was not really my cup of tea.  I’m probably in the minority, but I don’t like the music from Hamilton and he sang several numbers from that.  But different strokes for different folks.

Julissa in the Solis restaurant who made us deconstructed Tiramisu for dessert.  It sounds unusual, but it was heavenly to eat.  Ladyfingers soaked in Kahlua, mascarpone cheese spooned over them and chocolate shavings sprinkled on top!

Today we’re steaming along the northern coasts of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico.  We’re still bouncing.  If you read this you know trivia is important and a highlight for us serial cruisers and today was no exception.  We were on a roll!  We won by more than 100 points!  I won a Seabourn umbrella (I have several already) which I will pass on to a favorite crew member. The hardest thing will be which one to give it to because there are so many who take such good care of me.

The most important spot on the ship at high noon with Miss Kitty waiting on the table to wave us to victory (my noon Bloody Mary is there too 😁)

 

I’ve written about this area of the ocean a couple of years ago, but I think it’s interesting enough that I like to remind myself of it.  We’re sailing over an area called the Puerto Rico Trench.  Below us  are tectonic plates passing each other. Along part of this area the North American plate is diving below the Caribbean Plate creating an area of subduction.  The result is that this trench has the deepest points in the Atlantic Ocean, reaching depths of more than 28,000 feet.  The mass of the Earth at the bottom of the trench is so dense that it causes a difference in the gravitational pull at the surface and as a result NASA has detected that there is actually a dip in the ocean level around here.  I find that absolutely fascinating.

That's it for now.  I haven't decided what to do for dinner.  I had an invitation but declined because it was for 6:45 which is too early, and the host is a conversationalist whose talks I haven't been to so I'd have to pretend I had.  More later...

November 1 - Lost in the Ethernet or missing in Miami

I wrote something about my sea day between Charleston and Miami and today in port and it disappeared.  I must have pushed a key I shouldn’t have and now it’s gone.  Oh, well, here’s an abbreviated recap.

We did a lot of rocking and rolling after leaving Charleston.  Winds were 30 knots or better so it was bouncy.  I don’t get seasick but walking around can be very tiring as you try not to lurch from side to side.  Pretty much everyone on the ship looks like they’re a little tipsy. It calmed down in the evening.  After dinner with the cruise director Aimée I went to see the second show by the violinist Katarina Rossa.  She was even better in this one.  She played one of my favorite pieces of music, Ravel’s Bolero, and I was in heaven.

I forgot to mention that we played our last trivia game and once again didn’t win.  I’m convinced it’s because we didn’t have a very good name.  It couldn’t possibly be that we didn’t know the answers.  Only two of us are going on for this next leg, but we have a few recruits already.  No, we didn’t give them a test or have them fill out a questionnaire about their areas of expertise.  Believe it or not I have seen teams that do that before they deign to let someone join.  They don’t get the part “it’s only a game.”

This morning I was all set to sleep in because I didn’t want to go ashore for anything in Miami.  Instead, I’d made an appointment for a pedicure in the spa in the afternoon.  Well, my plan was foiled.  The 15 of us staying on from the last leg had to gather at 9:15 and go ashore as a group for a face-to-face with a Customs and Border Protection officer.  We went into the terminal, passports in hand, and hung out for close to half an hour.  Nobody came to check us and then we were told   we could go back aboard.  In other words, it was a complete waste of time.  I spent the rest of the afternoon hanging around watching the newcomers.  

I made a bet with myself that the demographic on this 8-day cruise would be very different from the first 14-day leg, and sure enough I think I’m right.  I believe the average age of the passengers has gone down close to 20 years.  An 8-day Caribbean cruise I’m sure attracts more working people plus it’s a “fun in the sun” cruise too. The club tonight was busier than any of the first two weeks with the exception of the Halloween dance party. I’ll be curious to see if that continues.

Today the man in charge of all entertainment for Seabourn, Handré, came onboard and it was so nice to see him.  He was our first Cruise Director on this very ship on our first Seabourn cruise 11 years ago.  He is a genuinely nice person and he is also a talented pianist and composer.  He’ll be doing a show for us and I’m really looking forward to that. I spent some time talking with him this evening and he told me something about that first cruise I didn’t know.  One morning on that voyage we were supposed to dock in Casablanca.  Around 6 AM the ship did a tremendous roll.  I described what happened in my blog post for that day, October 29, 2013.  I knew that a lot of glassware and china was broken but something else happened that I didn’t know about.  The grand piano in the Grand Salon flipped over.  Until today the same piano has been on the Quest and there have been continuous problems with it, specifically keeping it in tune.  The other night when the band was backing up a guest performer I heard a lot of clunker notes and I thought either the piano player had too much wine or the piano was horribly out of tune.  Well, Handré told me the Quest got a brand new piano today! I’ve got lots of time on here still to listen to the difference.

Well, I’ve written about my day and it wasn’t very exciting, but it conveys a sense of what it’s like on a sea day in port.  It’s actually quite nice because for several hours it’s like having your own yacht and you can just chill out. We have two sea days upcoming on our way to Frenchman’s Cay in the British Virgin Islands.  We’ve got some new guest lecturers to talk about treasures of the Spanish main and other relevant subjects given where we’ll be for the next week.  There is always something going on, in fact sometimes it’s hard to make choices.

So that’s all for tonight.  Time for lights out.  I'll add some photos tomorrow; I'm too tired now. It's 1:30 AM!  Hasta mañana!