Day 10 Monday 23rd September 2019: Atlantic Ocean
Rather than being woken by an alarm, this morning I was woken up by a large bang and the ship shaking.
Our times for immigration in New York were in the pocket outside of our door. To our relief we had been assigned an 8 am slot with a meeting place of the Grand Casino.
After our earlier than planned wake up, we walked to the back of the ship and the International restaurant for breakfast. There we shared a table with an initially not very chatty group for a change. I tried the special of two eggs sunny side up, a slice of ham, grits and red eye gravy. I did not enjoy anything but the eggs. Thank goodness for the toast!
Later the table conversation heated up about places where passengers lived and had very poor GP surgeries. We heard about waits of up to a fortnight for appointments being common.
Our morning walk was punctuated by large amounts of spray as Sapphire Princess bumped her way through the swell.
For lunch we went back to the International dining room. I started with gravalax and then a naked cheeseburger. Once back in the Atrium I bought a T-shirt on offer that celebrated both New England and Canada.
Evening and a show in the theatre
We watched another film in the afternoon before having a pre-dinner drink in Crooners bar.
On our table for six, the big discussion was about drink prices across all the cruise lines and the price of drink packages – no conclusion was reached about which was the best option.
The show from the Sapphire’s cast was ‘Let me entertain you.’ For us, this was made special by having the Sapphire orchestra play live rather than there be canned backing music.
From the Cruise Log
At Sea — Monday 23rd September 2019
Overnight, Sapphire Princess proceeds Cape North around 01:00 as she steered various easterly and southeasterly courses throughout the early morning. By 09:00, Sapphire Princess had settled on her southwesterly course of 230° across the western North Atlantic Ocean, as she paralleled the eastern coastline of Nova Scotia en route to her next port of call, New York. She maintained an average speed of 17.5 kts or 20 mph throughout the day, with around 110 RPM set on her propulsion.
The depth below the keel in her noon position was only 70 metres or 230 feet, and the closest point of land en route was Gull Egg Island, which was 20NM distant on the ship’s starboard side. At around 16:00, Sapphire Princess passed the port of Halifax on the Nova Scotian coastline as she transited the Emerald Basin along the sub-marine Scotian tectonic shelf
Noon Position: Latitude: 45° 13.1′ N • Longitude: 060° 26.2’W
Wind: SW’ly Gale, Force 8
Sky: Overcast skies
Seas: Rough Seas + Average/Moderate S’ly swell
Pressure: 1004 hPa
Air Temperature: 16°C / 61°F