Sea Day Thoughts

A sea day entry to catch up on some activities that didn’t fit into the port write ups I’ve been doing.

The other night we had dinner in the Grand Dining Room with Paul and Carolyn, our around-the-world hosts. It took us a while to get to know Paul and Carolyn, but I’m really glad that we have. Dinner was really nice. We wound up spending nearly 2 ½ hours with them and the time just flew by. They are both very interesting, friendly, and caring people.

The entertainment team put out a Lego model of the Endurance (Shackleton’s ship) a few weeks ago. We didn’t become aware of it for several days, so when we first saw it it was partially completed. But the boys took to it with a relish, especially Thomas. Each sea day CD Bryn would put out 3-4 bags of Lego from the kit and the boys would work through those. We made sure to allow time for others to participate as well, but it seemed that there was either no interest or folks were deliberately steering clear to give the boys the opportunity to do it. We got it all finished on the last sea day of the tour. The model is now being proudly displayed on deck 4 in front of destination services.

We haven’t been attending all of the captain’s receptions, but we did go to the one that was held on the first sea day of this leg. Fellow ATW passenger Dan has been collecting captain’s hats that are given away at one of the shows. The plan was for everyone who has one to wear it to this reception. We gathered everyone up and took a group photo, including the captain, who seemed to be getting a kick out of it. He even gave Thomas a hug.

The current leg, which is Taipei to Perth, started on April 14. As we meet the new passengers, we’re finding a pattern that is getting reinforced: the ATW passengers (or “worldies” as Carolyn calls us) as a rule seem a bit more flexible and adaptable. There just isn’t much griping about minor things. At least not that we can see; there may be griping going on privately. We’ve long felt that the further you go in your travels and the more remote the destination, the more interesting the people you meet. I think the worldies are likely more mentally prepared for disruptions and changes as you simply cannot expect a 6-month cruise to go by with everything going 100% to plan. But here’s to the flexible, adaptable, roll-with-it travelers out there!

After attending a talk on the geography of the area we’ll be cruising over the next couple of weeks at which the speaker noted that we’re in a spot where you can see both the North Star and the Southern Cross in the sky at the same time, I decided to try it. Last night I went up to deck 11 after we did our after-dinner laps and took a look. And sure enough there was the Southern Cross low in the southern sky to forward, and there was Polaris, low in the northern sky to aft. Both were a bit tough to see due to the lighting on the ship, but they were there. Cool.En savoir plus