Sailing by the Bahamas

13 December 2006

Woke up this morning (Friday the 13th is on Wednesday this month) and looked out our window (which is a large two pane window with curved ends) and saw someone standing at the rail looking out to sea and smoking a cigarette and periodically taking pictures of the sunrise.

Smoker taking photos of the sunrise

We got our breakfast delivered this morning. It was what we ordered and when we ordered it.

Breakfast tray

I thought the room steward would deliver it, but it was someone different. I'm not sure whether we should have tipped him or not. (We should have.) We were supposed to call for pickup of the tray, and they never came, so when the room steward finally got to us, the tray was still there. (We should have put it out in the hall to be picked up)

We are supposed to get to Half Moon Cay today. I looked at the map, and Half Moon Cay (real name Little San Salvador) is down below Eleuthera. But since we started out from Norfolk late, we won't be there until 1430, and they decided to have the BBQ that would normally have been on the beach up on the Lido deck where the covered pool is.

BBQ chef on the pool deck

So we went up there, but ate in the Lido dining room instead of doing the BBQ.

Deviled egg and bread and butter

Noodles and cheese

For dessert we had some of HALs famous bread pudding. It is very good - one of our favorites

Bread pudding

The boat seemed to have slowed down some. We went out to the Lido deck pool after lunch.

Water sloshing out of the pool

The waves were making the pool water really slosh around in the pool.

Pool water on the deck

I was surprised they let people into the pool. It looked dangerous to me.

Fog and white caps

I took some pictures of land to the west of us which I assume was somewhere in the Bahamas - probably Eleuthera.

Orchids in the Ladies Room

After lunch, we met again for trivia and did absolutely horribly. We had correct answers for only 9 out of 16 questions. We did not know what the SOS on the Brillo pads stood for (Save Our Saucepans), or that the banana was the cheapest and most popular fruit (we said apple) or the name of the Las Vegas casino with the skyline of NYC was NY, NY or the name of a group of bears was a "sleuth" of bears. We didn't know the name of a song of Brian Adams was "Summer of 69" - I'd never even heard of him. The other people convinced me that the planet with an orbit of 84 years was Pluto and not (as Bob said) Uranus. And they thought that the country that many countries in Africa severed relations with in 1974 was South Africa, and it was not - it was Israel.

We did get to the cay on the new schedule, but since we were only going to be there until 1700, I decided not to go ashore, but wait until next time. We went down to our deck (deck 6) and I took some photos of the boats which were taking people ashore. (This is a tender port which means that the ship anchors rather than going in to a dock and people are ferried ashore either in a tender or at some ports in the lifeboats)

Loading the tender

Tender leaving

Looking down on the tender

Tender going to shore

Tender returning

Then I went up the stairs at the bow to deck 7 and out on the bow,

Flag staff on the bow

and took some photos from there.

Coastline

Chapel on shore

People on shore

From the deck looking up at the mast

Bob had gone back to the room, and he saw me on the bow camera.

Bow camera (but I'm not there as I took this photo)

For dinner, I had

Oysters Rockefeller

and Bob had a

Watermelon fruit cocktail

Then we both had a

Sirloin and twice baked potato

which was very good. I had

Berry crisp a la mode

for dessert, and Bob had

Tiramisu

Rona again ordered one desert for herself and one for the table for everyone to taste - this time it was

Chocolate Avalanche Cake

Afterwards we went to "Battle of the Sexes"

Cruise director at "Battle of the Sexes"

which we thought (incorrectly) would be the newlywed game, but instead was men against women in a kind of team Match Game. It was mildly amusing. The women lost. The main attraction tonight was a comedian named Noodles something, and he was very amusing.

Noodles? on Stage

The steward has been doing what I assume are towel animals, but until the 13th, I couldn't tell what animal they were. On the 13th, he did an elephant, which I recognized, so I put it on my night stand.

Towel elephant

Thursday 14 December 2006

This was another sea day. I decided to try the Lido for breakfast this time, so we made our way up there. Bob doesn't think it is laid out too well as you have to wait while everyone gets their waffles or omelets cooked instead of having those things off in other stations.

Bread selection

Dragon sculpture on the buffet

A part of the Breakfast buffet

Bob sat down at a table with a lady already sitting there and she didn't say anything to us, but when her husband came along, we found out that she was blind. We had a very interesting conversation.

The TV has caught up with the correct time (it was a day late yesterday), but it said that the winds were 26 knots, and waves were 7 to 20 feet. I tried the 6th deck atrium to do email, but eventually had to go up to the 7th deck.

Coffee bar near the internet cafe

The Trivia was before lunch this time, and we were again in last place although we got 10 right this time. We didn't know the Greek word used by psychologists for cleansing (catharsis), we didn't know that jai lai came from Spain, or that there was a 1000 ft deep lake in Guatemala named Atitlan, or that Walt Disney's first Mickey Mouse was in 1928. We did know that a dory was a fish, and I (at any rate) knew that a stomata was in the leaf of a plant. The sea was really calm and things were sunny.

Pool

We went to lunch down in the main dining room and I had the

Squash Apple Soup

and Bob had the Bahama banana soup. The two couples with
us were from Mass. and VA near DC. Bob had a hamburger, and I had spaghetti. I had

Praline ice cream

and he had a banana sundae. While we were at lunch we went through some very nasty rainy weather and the waves have picked up.

Afterwards we went to a talk on the tropical rainforest, which unfortunately concentrated on the plants so Bob had to poke me to keep me awake.

Theater

Talk on tropical plants

For dinner on the 14th, we both had

Antilles Shrimp Cocktail

which was tiny shrimp on a cantaloupe slice, and then Bob had

Green pea soup

and the peas in it were really green and not yellow-green, and I had a nice

Salad of Bibb lettuce, olives, hard boiled eggs and tuna

As an entre,, he had a

Roasted turkey dinner

and I had

Cheese manicotti

For dessert, he had a

Raspberry sundae

and I had

Chocolate mousse in a hard chocolate shell basket.

The entertainment tonight was a pianist who took requests at the end and made them into a medley - which included the 1812 Overture, Scot Joplin, Nola, God Bless America, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and the Flight of the Bumblebee. I came in at the end, as I had been doing computing until then.

Player Piano with lights in the atrium

The towel animal tonight was probably a sloth

Sloth towel animal, chocolates, the note to set our clocks ahead and plan of the day for tomorrow

We set our clocks ahead an hour and then went to bed. I can't set the minutes on my watch for some reason.

Tomorrow is St. Thomas