Day Three - At Sea

Day three

Today I woke at sea.. It was daylight out, and 5AM on the watch so eight AM on board the Crown, and we are ‘at sea’. The motion of the ship is soothing and I like it, and it results in constant creaking. I lay in bed awhile longer and decided to use room service, which I did, ordering coffee and juice to the room, opening the curtains and seeing broken clouds with about 20% blue sky and the clouds are moving past the window at a good clip. Last I checked, we were heading due south at 17mph, but will update later today. There is a ten oclock briefing on shore excursions which I intend to attend.

At ten, I went to the lounge where the director of shore excursions was giving a talk about the next two ports of call. It started promptly, unlike the shambles on the Ecstasy, and people who strolled in eight minutes late were out of luck. I sat in the very back row by the door, and when I heard a tour mentioned that got close to elephant seals and required a good back, I shot down to the desk and booked the last tour to Peninsula Valdes at Puerto Madryn, our port of call in the morning.
Back to the presentation one deck up and I caught enough to decide that I wanted to go to the Lagoon Bluff where penguins are said to be plentiful, and if I got it right, you walk right amongst them. So I booked that one as well, and I think that is it until Chile. Everyone I hear raves about the Antartic overflight, and I continue to hope that the weather permits us a good trip. Certainly it is lovely here today right now. “Here” is about S 38 W 58.

While I was on deck six, I did a quick check with purser about filling out the debarkation form, and without meaning to, I had to go into sufficient detail about my Dawn experience for her to specifically check the VIP list for debarkation, and I AM ON IT!! SO- no more wondering about those choc covered strawberries etc. BTW, the Captains cocktail party is tonight, and I am supposedly due about three invitations (passenger, latitude and VIP) but have received none. The Captain’s name is Ronnie Borg, and I have enjoyed his announcements.

Went on deck and took a fix, and twas windy. Course altered from 180 to 226.. I threw sweats over my shorts and Bali t shirt.

Next came a long session with the internet. I needed just a little help to get going, but mostly because I didn’t have the wireless card in tight enough. Soo with forty cents a minute, I read several blogs, caught up on trrbpatsoit, tried to use the emailanywhere, even did back comics for craps sake, in fact I was on line for about an hour and a half, and only quit because I was getting hungry.

Lunch was substantial but not piggy.......well, maybe it was, as I seemed to have gained four pounds since yesterday - must go re-weigh self shortly. I had pork, sliced cold cuts, some salad with Roquefort cheese dressing, a hotdog, some French fries and a dish of rum raisin ice cream. BTW, have not seen popcorn yet.

Not surprisingly, I then slunk into a deck chair at the very stern of deck eight, one deck above the closed swimming pool and larger deck covered with many towel covered passengers and I just watched the stern wake, watched a bird (kestrel, albatross,?) swooping back and forth across the wake. He was dark in color and much bigger than a seagull and used his wings more than a pelican say, but I never actually saw him fishing. I estimated visually that the ship is pitching about five degrees, with zero roll at all. Soothing, not uncomfortable, but one does tend to grab the rails frequently. In fact, I suspect I dozed off for a few moments.

Noon – captain on pa. 50,000 pop of next port, eta ten am tomorrow. Nearest land 30NM. Viz good. Air temp 63 f. sea temp 68F. Press 1024mb. SSW wind force 4 10-15Knots. Sunset at 7:44. // Back home news is stocks down, temps down, snow up. The predicted northeaster DID dump a foot of snow some places, and I hope I didn’t lose power and all the related headaches that go with it.

Went up to the gym on deck ten and got on an exercise bike for a 65 calorie burn off but I am uncomfy about having no sneakers. They were busy with a tour however and took no notice of me. I was not happy to see 166 lbs showing for my weight, as that is about twenty more than I want and 15 more than I thought. Still, I had gone back for seconds for the ice cream after my laze on the back deck.

At 1700 ships time (1400 at my snow covered crumbling mansion) , I got a call from Hannah, who is the concierge and is mine if I want her. 8224 is her extension, but she did not invite me to meet the hotel director etc. At least not yet, since I told her I was being well looked after and that I doubted I would use her very much. Still, one never knows. She sounded like she came from about the same area as R*** on the Dawn (Kitzbuhle).

Hehe. Having just told Hannah that I wouldn’t be bothering her much, I called her back as soon as I exited my lovely hot shower (with bar soap thank you so much) and asked if she could have a pair of pants pressed, and there was a knock on the door within five minutes. I am sorta pulling out all the stops for the party, with wingtips, fresh pressed slacks, and cashmere turtleneck and blazer.

One of the perky little fun people who works for the cruise line (and who probably enjoys the college Bermuda runs a whole lot better than this boatload of official old farts) was running a game in which she asked people to bring her things. One was a picture of the white house, and I was mildly annoyed to have totally forgotten that it appears on a ten dollar bill. Among other things she wanted were black teeth (comb) expired drivers license, expired credit card, car keys (all these on the sun deck where everything should be back in the room), sox with a hole in them, a bar tab, a hundred dollar bill (same guy had both of those) and dentures.

// The pants were back, pressed within ten minutes. It’s good to be very important.

Time 1900. supper was two slices of sliced hot pork, two pieces of cold smoked turkey, and a double dip of pineapple sherbert. I followed this with three turns around the outside of deck 7. This is allegedly a mile, but even if not, I at least walked some of the dinner off. I asked about popcorn and they drew a blank. Ecstasy no, Sea (tho it had little else going for it, yes) Dawn yes and Crown is still a question mark. The sea is still swelled, but sunny and bright, and I think we will cross over forty degrees south sometime tonight. Just peeked at the ‘list’ of cruises and I still need to come up with the mileage of the Sea trip to Belize.

Cocktail party in ten. //very different from the one on the Dawn. No receiving line. Snuck into very back corner, declined champagne and most of the hor doerves, and only belatedly fell into chat with two other couples, but only because of my recent expertise in NCL. The captain is good with English (he is Swedish) and he gave the dimensions of the ship, said we have good wx for at least the next two days (fingers still crossed).

There are 509 Americans aboard out of a passenger list of over a thousand. Many from Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, lots from Canada, Germany, a few French, etc. I going over the notes from the day, I was bemused to find it was on the back of a letter I wrote to C*** on the Dawn and never delivered.

Lido Lounge, 2200 or so. The evening had a nice ending when the trio met Richy, the guy who shared the plane ride with me down from Atlanta. The pix of the dawn went over really well, and the lady liked the towel pix, another of which I captured tonight when my current stewardess made an alligator.

The wi fi almost hooked me up, enabling me to surf and listen at the same time, but I think I am just beyond the range, which covers the library and the other hallway. Sort of teasing me, cuz the light will go steady for awhile and then blink again when I try to log on. After well over an hour of solid bosa nova, I said goodnight to them and came to the library where the light was solid green, and still couldn’t get onto the net for some reason.

Midnight buffet is calling me, but fingers are reminding me that THEY don’t like me weighing over 150 lbs, and neither do my good clothes.

Checked out the buffet both in the casino and top of crown – too late for one and too early for the other, so returned to cabin and worked with laptop awhile.