Five days at sea

Friday, April 5, 2019
Saturday, April 6, 2019
Sunday, April 7, 2019
Monday, April 8, 2019
Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Five days at sea! Normally, I really like my sea days. This time my feelings are a little mixed.

Where am I?

SO, WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING

I’ve mentioned several times how much I enjoy the restful and relaxing days at sea. I have been looking forward to these five days since we were in India. I don’t have all good news to report, however I’ll start with the good news I have.

But before I get started, remember that MSC Splendida that was parked next to us in Muscat? Well, they left about an hour before we did and there must have been a visitor-thief on board who was afraid of losing a hand! (I can almost picture some guy in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt running toward that ship yelling, “Start the ship! Start the ship!”) Just look at how that ship left port! They didn’t even wait for tugboats!

Our cruise director, Hamish, is always coming up with interesting things to do when we’re at sea. I know that some of my colleagues aboard ship tend to get a little bored so Hamish really tries to step it up. For example, we had a special dinner (or supper if you prefer, Stephanie) one night that was supposed to imitate being at a speakeasy in the 1920’s. Hats were provided for the gentlemen, and hats, pearls, and gloves were provided for the ladies. Kinda fun, I have to admit.

On most nights I enjoy going out to the Sea View bar to enjoy a cigar. On two of the nights as we were approaching the coast of Somalia, the captain ordered exterior lights to be extinguished in order to make us less visible to pirates. So, for two nights the Sea View bar looked a little different.

So, what does one see when sailing through one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world? You see ships, of course. And, I’ll add, that we were passing them with little effort. If thar be pirates, maybe they’ll attack a slower vessel. Maybe?

And, as we were rounding the Bab-el-Mandeb and entering the Red Sea the space between Yemen to our east and Djibouti to our west was so narrow that we could see land on either side.

On Saturday night, I received a couple of nice pieces of mail in my stateroom mail box. Here’s one of them. Click on it to enlarge the image.

A special visit to the Rijks Museum? Just for us? And, with refreshments! Plus a special display of works by Rembrandt! And all of this without additional charge. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to our visit to Amsterdam!

Anything else?

Yes, just a couple of items. First (and I’m so excited about this) I finished my book! This is a rare occurrence for me. I never actually finish reading books. Well, rarely at least.

In order to celebrate my accomplishment, I had the ship’s signature bloody mary as part of my Sunday brunch.

Now, I’ll see if I can make some progress toward finishing the book Sapiens.

There is a little bad news to share. On Monday, I caught a ferocious cold. I spent all day in my stateroom. I continued to isolate myself and try to rest up on Tuesday so that I might have enough strength to enjoy all of the hiking that will be involved as part of my Wednesday visit to Petra. I hope this works out.

What’s coming up?

Tomorrow, I’m in Aqaba, Jordan. It’s an overnight stay. The first day I’ll be going to Petra so prepare to see some stunning photos!