Atlantic crossing day 1

The clocks got moved ahead one hour last night, but I was still up early and went up to Horizons for morning coffee. We are headed due east, so the sunrise was nice to watch, at least until the sun was up over the horizon and blasting directly through the windows. My usual morning routine is to catch up on email, send a message to my mom, do my puzzles (Wordle, Connections, “where in the world?,” etc.) and read the paper. As we drift further away from our home time zone, this is getting harder to do. I went to read the Times this morning only to get yesterday’s paper as the new one wasn’t up yet. Naturally this problem will only be exacerbated as we continue east.

The time change meant the boys slept in later than usual, but that was OK. We had breakfast and then attended the lecture on the history of West Africa by “Dr Sherry.” It was very informative, especially since this is an area of history that is seldom covered in American schools. After that it was school, lunch, and exercise, which took us into the late afternoon.

I was reviewing our plans for Cape Town and wanted to verify that the tour we’d booked on the second day would get us back in time. Turns out it would not, despite earlier assurances. Or at least not back soon enough for me… “back by 1730-1745, depending on traffic” when we have an 1800 departure time is cutting it far too close. So we canceled that and checked on ship excursions that day. Turns out there is a peninsula tour that will allow us to visit the penguins, which we remember from our 1999 trip to South Africa. We signed up for that, using shipboard credit.

Seas and winds have been remarkably calm so far. Fingers crossed that continues!Read more