Sailing the Caribbean Sea

Oct 13, 2010  - 31 degres, with a breeze

It was fairly rough during the night with a wind pushing against the side of the ship. Still rocky in the morning so Joan decided to stay in bed with her bands and medication. I went up for breakfast then sat in on a question and answer with the members of the cruise activities staff. They told us about their life aboard ship  - how they work and live. Next I watched some people play bocci. I picked up a recipe for stir-fry beef, then went to change for lunch. Today we were invited to a brunch with the captain for previous HAL sailors, for which Joan was feeling better, and hungry. We had a nice meal, champagne and got our tile coasters for being previous cruisers. The motion has settled down and is supposed to get very calm later today. It was very warm in the dining room, and we heard it was nice and cool up in the crows nest on deck 12 so we went up there to cool off. Whew, much better. Joan went to the back pool to enjoy the sun and I went to a class on tandoori chicken, by Chef Bitta, second in command and Indian, so he used his traditional recipe with a few extras not on the ship’s recipe. I also attended a trivia game about chocolate. A group of ladies were sitting there when I went in and called me over, so I sat with them and they were very smart, as we won and received some pins as well as some chocolate. We met up again for happy hour and the men from yesterday joined us while their wives were practicing for a skit they are doing tomorrow. We had made a reservation for dinner in Canaletto, the Italian restaurant tonight and it was very good. The show was a variety of music by the band, the string orchestra, and a guitarist as well as 2 of the singers (Pic 3) from the ship’s cast. It was very good. From there we went to the oceans bar to listen to the trio there who play music from the 40’s etc. As we were there Dan the Cruise director (pic 4) came along and sang a few songs with the band. All very entertaining. Tonight was the dessert extravaganza, and we went up to take pictures (pics 1 & 2). It was so hot and humid even though they had the roof open a little. We took a walk around and took pictures, and were talking to people when all of a sudden there was rain coming in through the roof that was open and a great scramble to shut the roof and move the audio equipment that was set up. Water was all over the floor and we couldn’t stand the heat so came back to the room where it is nice and cool.