Steve and Cathy's Blog

The post on Cartagena for the 27th was all about that very interesting city, but there were also a couple of shipboard activities worth mentioning for that day that we want to insert now.

A few days previous to this one, there had been an ATW auction.  One of the prizes being auctioned off that we mentioned but did not elaborate upon was Cruise Director For A Day, where the winning bidder would shadow Ray Carr, actually do all of his daily announcements, host any activities he was involved in, eat in the crew dining room with some of the officers and so forth.

Let us also tell you that the very youngest ATW guest was an 11-year old boy named Jackson who was being home-schooled by his parents as the three of them took the entire ATW cruise. His parents are a very nice couple from North Carolina, and over the course of the cruise, Jackson became everybody’s favorite guest. We especially enjoyed seeing the relationship that developed between Jackson and Peter Croyle. They did lots of stuff together, including meals just the two of them. One day I teased them by saying “You two must feel like twins who were separated at birth.” And Jackson replied “Well not really because I’m only 11 and he’s like 58!”  Peter took umbrage at this and said “NO, only 47!” Very cool kid.

Well, to the delight of all 186 of us ATW guests, Jackson’s parents won the bid for Cruise Director For A Day.  When we congratulated them later in the day, we learned that it was a surprise for him and that he sort of had to be talked into taking the prize.  But his parents were successful and Jackson was “on board.”

Now, every day at 4:30pm, the Cruise Director hosts Team Trivia.  This is a very popular activity, with probably eight or nine teams, each with a team name that they thought up, such as Around the World Babes (a group of the ATW women traveling alone).  Since Jackson, as Cruise Director For A Day, would be hosting Team Trivia, Barbara O’Dell thought it would be fun to put together a team for this one day.  She thought the name should be The Jackson Five in his honor, and recruited Cathy and Steve to be her team members.

Jackson himself thought up the questions, probably with some help from Mom and Dad.  Ray was sort of the referee (some participants take this competition way, waytoo seriously) but Jackson read off all fifteen questions A picture of this activity begins this post). We three who comprised the Jackson Five actually got ten of the fifteen questions correct (Barbara and Cathy are very smart!), but the winning team received a score of thirteen.

Just to be there to see this charming, adorable, unassuming and somewhat shy youngster handle this task with smiles and joy made our participation one of the most fun cruise activities we have had.

Our dinner in the Grand Dining Room was also a special occasion.  We were invited to have dinner with Steve and Tricia, who were the Oceania dedicated Around the World Hosts for the entire journey.  This delightful and energetic couple are from England, and have been involved in putting together cruise entertainment productions for quite a few years.  They had started a company in England to do this, but had taken in a partner who somehow then started his own company and stole away Steve and Tricia’s primary clients. Being the positive and when-life-gives-you-lemons-then-make-lemonade people they are, they decided to regroup by joining Insignia as the ATW hosts. Steve puts together some of the daily activities and Tricia organizes and participates much of the entertainment aboard ship.

So we have a wonderful dinner with them.  Because we eschewed the nightly activity, we did not get to know Tricia as well as we would have liked prior to this.  They were the two crew members we reported to and followed for Mandatory Lifeboat and Safety Drills, and Steve organized service club member meetings that Steve attended as a Rotary Club member, so we knew each other.  Now we know them much better and hope to see this thoroughly engaging pair again.

Now let’s get on to today, the 28^th.  We had been warned by Ray Carr that the seas would be busy all night, and, sure enough, we woke up to high winds, a rocky ship and an overcast day.

We ate breakfast at Waves after watching The Morning Show with Ray Carr being hosted by Jackson (and Ray).  A very fun way to start the day.

We think about attending The Great White Elephant Sale at 11:00am.  The cruise line organizes this event whose proceeds will be put into the Crew Welfare Fund just like the ATW Auction and ATW Quilt Raffle.  For the past two weeks, the Entertainment Team has been requesting guests to donate any purchases that they might have made during the cruise that, well, they now see they really didn’t want to take home with them. Ray had been telling us that, darn it, don’t worry if you think no one else will want your “white elephant,” he can sell it!  I donated a rubber exercise ball that was supposed to help eliminate RLS (Restless Leg Syndrome) because all it did was make the soles of my feet itch.

In the meantime, Steve finally wrote the long post on Kauai and Cathy worked on the ATW needlepoint project.  When 11:00am rolled around, we were both so engaged in our activities that we passed on the White Elephant Sale.  This decision we came to regret as several guests we talked to that did attend said that Ray was a riot and the event was very fun.  Oh well.

Steve attends Peter Croyle’s lecture at 2:00pm.  He discussed the history of the Caribbean and acquainted us with Grand Cayman, our destination tomorrow.  As always, he was full of good information.  As a diver, he said that Grand Cayman hosts some of the best diving and clearest water this side of French Polynesia and was really looking forward to being there tomorrow.

He also discussed a problem that has been percolating in the Caribbean Sea since 2011: enormous blooms of Sargassum, a type of algae.  Essentially, this is a species of seaweed that floats on top of the water.  Scientists are positive of the cause, but suspect rising water temperatures associated with climate change.  These blooms are fouling beaches on the east coast of Florida and the beaches on the eastern shore of many Caribbean islands. Apparently it smells pretty bad but is otherwise not harmful.  Peter tells us that scientists are looking for other environmental impacts, but he add that that the floating masses of seaweed are providing a protective habitat in which at least two species of fish lay their eggs, so there is at least some positive benefit to the mess.  We actually see patches of sargassum today as our ship sails through the Caribbean.  Below are two pictures I took from our veranda, plus an additional pictures a beach on the island of Guadalupe taken off the internet.

We have arranged to have dinner in the Grand Dining Room with some of our most special friends: Barbara and Brian O’Dell, of course, Helma and Rich Rosenthal, Pat Watt, and Bob Sparks and Terry Parker from Arizona.  Naturally we have a very fun evening, but it is interesting that, in the back of all of our minds, we know that our adventure is almost over.  While we are all looking forward to going home to reunite with friends and family, we are going to miss each other and sincerely hope we will stay in touch.  Certainly that is everyone’s intention as we spend the evening reliving parts of the trip.

From Left to right: Brian, Rich and Terry

From Left to right: Bob, Helma and Pat

From Left to right: Pat, Barbara and Cathy

Tomorrow will be a short day in Grand Cayman.  The pace of this last segment is picking up.  We are looking forward to these last few days, but also to finally going home.