August 23, 2022 Sea Day

Steve wakes up at 4am and decides that this is a good time to overcome the slow internet problem. All the photos he wants to put in his blog have to be uploaded to the WordPress website. During the day, this can often be a painfully slow process because everyone else is online then. Early morning hours should be better. And they are! By 5:30am, he is almost all caught up putting them in the media section of the website, ready to be placed in a given blog.

He chances to look out on to the veranda, and sees that a gorgeous sunrise is developing.

He wakes Cathy up to join him in enjoying it. It just keeps getting better and better, including a rainbow. The rainbow is a result of the rain and fog that, within twenty minutes, envelopes the ship. 

We can see nothing except rain, fog and the ocean. Such a shame, because we were to have again traveled through the Prince Christian Sound as we did on the 19th. Even without the captain announcing the cancellation of the transit through the sound, it becomes obvious that we won’t be doing that. The sea in the sound is flat as a millpond. The sea we begin to see now has 2-3 foot waves and the motion of the ship becomes evident. Temperature: 41.7 F. Winds: 16.7 knots. Beginning to rain steadily. Outer decks all closed. No walk for Steve today.

We feel very fortunate to have been awake for this beautiful start to the day.  Normally we would be asleep for another two hours. What a great beginning to a Sea Day.

At 8am sharp, we are at the Grand Dining Room for breakfast. For his entre, Steve has waffles. How ordinary. But Cathy asks what the egg special is today, and is told the special is a fried egg on a hamburger. Sold! She loves it, especially because of the quality of the ground beef used. More coffee and cappuccinos to get the day started, and off we go.

Spending the day in the room seems the wrong thing to do on a cruise ship. Spending time with our shipmates – but not necessarily engaging them in conversation – seems more appropriate, so Steve grabs his laptop and Cathy her needlepoint and we head for Horizons on Deck 10 where we can hear and see people having fun and gaze out at the sea.

We pass by four icebergs when we’re in Horizons

After an hour or two there, it’s getting so noisy that it’s distracting. Next up is lunch at noon at the GDR. We are seated and one of the sommeliers comes to our table. We see her name is Tina, and we have met her before. Cathy says “That’s the name of one of our daughters,” to which Tina answers something about liking the name because it fits on her name tag. She then tells us that her twin sister is also a sommelier named Nina, and she’s on the ship. 

Ahaaa! Mystery solved. Cathy says to Steve: “I told you that I saw two of them together.” And Steve says: “And I told you that I swear that the person we met before had Nina on her name tag!” So there are two of them, both beautiful blonde women. We aren’t losing it! A very fun moment, and Tina says thanks to us for the good fun it was for her. 

The afternoon is spent as are most Sea Day afternoons. Dinner at the Grand Dining Room as usual. Day ends – as usual – around 8:30pm. Tomorrow is the second of three straight Sea Days, after which we reach the Faroe Islands and the end of multiple Sea Days for the rest of the cruise.