Thursday, May 28, 2015
Sea Day 2. Nothing to do and all day to do it. Woke up to
fog and haze and moderate seas again. It is actually raining out this morning.
Clay was off to the gym by 6am again and took his keycard today. I slept in
until quarter of 7am. Terrace didn’t start serving breakfast until 7:30am and
there was hardly anyone in there when we got up there at 8am. Marina has a lot
planned today that mostly does not have an extra charge. There is an indoor
country fair from 10:30 to 11:30am on decks 5 & 6 and decks 14 & 15. No
idea what is involved. Needlepoint again at 9:30am today, didn’t go. There is
an Indian Dinner Buffet at Terrace tonight. The executive chef talked this up
at the last cooking demo we attended and it is evidently a special event
reserved for crossings. I guess 3 consecutive sea days and officially we are
crossing. He also said he would have a Gala Tea but I guess they must be saving
that for tomorrow.
Clay is at a lecture this morning. Dr. Roger Cartwright on
Ships of State. It sounded interesting and I haven’t been to one of his
lectures yet. But, I skipped it to answer some Cruise Critic roll call
questions. They are showing The Shipping News as an afternoon popcorn movie in
the theater at 2pm and we’ll plan to be there. It is set in Newfoundland, which
we’ve just left. We have seen it before and I’ve read it. I recall it being
rather bleak and depressing, but I should see it with new eyes today. Clay has
no recollection, so unless he sleeps through it again he may see something new
too. Well, the movie certainly looked like the sail in to Corner Brook. It was
not as bleak as I remembered. I enjoyed it.
So, we went to the Country Fair this morning. They had a
very good turnout. It was a bunch of stations where you tried to win raffle
tickets. Martinis had the bar staff with a ring toss. The pursers had a ball
toss in the atrium. The shops had a teddy bear toss in the atrium. Destinations
had a match photos with places contest. The spa had acupuncture trivia. The
electricians had an Operation-type game. The deck hands had knot tying. (Clay’s
big ticket score.) The entertainment staff had line dancing. (That was the
easiest big ticket score for me.) Housekeeping had a contest of fastest pillow
casing. Waiters had a contest of 2 couple carrying a lime between their
foreheads. Bar staff had a drop coins into a glass in a bucket of water. Chefs
had a blind identification of spices. We thought we had a bunch of tickets
between us but we didn’t win anything.
The raffle ticket drawings ended at noon and the entire ship headed to
lunch! We wound up eating outside at Waves because there were no seats to be
found in Terrace. It was fine.
Today we saw a lot more of the birds we had spotted
yesterday. They seem like small birds to be living out here hundreds of miles
from land in the North Atlantic. Clay got some photos today and thinks he
matched images via Google and that most of the birds we’ve been seeing are
fulmars.
Clay finally opened his bottle of Belfast Bay McGovern’s
Oatmeal Stout from Portland, Maine and he says it tastes and smells like
cigarette butts at the bottom of an old beer bottle. I won’t say what it makes
his breath smell like. I implored him to just dump it out and open another.
Half way through it, he finally got up and went in the bathroom where I heard
him call out OMG. He made me come in to see the stains it left in the sink. I
won’t share anymore. He just stuck an Alligash White in the ice bucket. It
should be very different. In fact, I think he has already had one or more of
them.
We had the Indian buffet at Terrace. It was pretty awesome.
We both only ate from one area and there was so much selection that we were too
full to go to the other stations. We were both a little disappointed not to
find our favorite desserts. Kulfi for Clay and gulab jamon for me, but Clay
really liked the mango yogurt and we both liked some kind of noodley pudding
that I can’t tell you the name of it.
The show tonight is a repeat of One More for the Road, which
was a Vegas theme. It was our least favorite of the Jean Ann Ryan productions
so we will skip it. We put the clocks forward one hour again tonight. I wish I
could say we had nothing pressing to do tomorrow but there is a mandatory life
boat drill at 10:15am. I realize emergency procedures are important but when is
enough, enough?
