Panama Canal and California: Day 10 The Pacific Ocean

 

Late night on the Pacific Ocean

After our late evening we finally made it back to our room. We were out in the balcony well after midnight watching a heavy downfall of rain. The rain was so heavy that it made a curtain illuminated with the ship’s lights. Then suddenly there was a bright flash of lightning and the whole sky lit up.

This was a good time to get onto the ship’s Internet. I used my iPhone app, PostSnap, to load up postcards of images from our transit to send home.

Morning at sea on the Pacific Ocean

This was our first day to sail on the Pacific and we were hoping for the rain to have passed.

Even after being outside for 11 hours and a late night I still woke at 6 am ship’s time. At 7 am I went on a drink’s run to the International Cafe. Once back in the cabin we drank our coffee and tea and looked out at the sky covered in clouds accompanied by a steady rainfall.

Breakfast in the Bordeaux Restaurant

Our breakfast was again in the Bordeaux and we sat with two Australian couples and a couple from New Zealand.

We had already sat with the New Zealanders before and we were soon continuing our discusions on politics this joined by the Australians.

It seems that politicians in New South Wales (their Australian State Parliament is nicknamed ‘the Bear Pit’) and New Zealand are as disappointing to their electorates as those in the UK. Our companions on the table were all coming to the end of two or three month epic vacations. We were fascinated to hear about their busy itineraries before boarding Coral Princess.

The conversation did turn to bad weather on ships (given the rain we could see through the window) and the gentleman from New Zealand told us about 60 foot waves in a hurricane that he’d been through. He had been the ship’s engineer. The description of that ship’s bow becoming almost a submarine in the gigantic waves was too scary to think about for too long.

On his transits through the Panama Canal on cargo ships there had been people living alongside the canal and even canoes paddling alngside ships passing by. All this had changed with the establishment of the secure canal zone.

I took the advice of the server and had the Mexican omelette special along with toast and a bowl of orange segments.

Another sale

In the Provence restaurant, above us,there was yet another sale in progress. This sale was billed as an outlet sale. The merchandise on sale was for destinations on this cruise and even items from last season’s Alaskan cruises. It was indeed an outlet sale and all the goods were at reduced prices. There were tables and tables of T-shirts, polo shirts, racks of dresses, trousers, shorts, hats and simple tops.

After leaving the sale empty handed I did buy two Panama Canal transit T-shirts from the regular shop. They were a bargain at $20 for two. The shop was also selling a table full of books about the Canal.

Once outside we watched a flock of birds that were following the ship. The birds rode the thermals and then dived down to catch any disturbed fish. They would then wave hop back to the stern of the ship and start to ride thermals again.

I watched them for our balcony before going closer to them and watching from the Promenade Deck. We passed the red LPG ship that we had last seen heading towards the new locks.

Then we saw the Celebrity Infinity passing us on her way South.

The rain kept spotting on me as I watched the birds cycle time and time again from gliding to wave hopping.

On the port side the weather looked overcast but as we walked around the stern the starboard side was dark and menacing with flashes of lightning and low rumbles of thunder.

Afternoon on the Pacific

Lunch was in Sabbatinis. This was now a pizza parlour and was very busy. Our server warned us that our pizzas would take 30 minutes or more and we could leave if that was too long to wait. This was a good opportunity to enjoy our Grolsch beer and sit and watch the world go by.

We chatted to our neighbours on next door tables while we waited – simply relaxing. The menus listed pizza specials but the usual pizzas were all available too. I had a pepperoni with extra mushrooms. When it came it was plate sized and was delicious.

We passed more than 1.5 hours in the restaurant over lunch before going back to our cabin Looking out the birds were still all around ship and diving for food.

Back in our cabin we had the case of the ‘Mysteriously Appearing Glasses’. These were a pair of glasses on our table. We guessed that they belonged to our cabin steward. I did try to page her but with no luck. When we saw her later in the afternoon she told us that they were ‘from under the bed.’ This was strange as under the bed there were our three suitcases, a rucksack and a carry-on bag. The glasses probably belonged to the owner of the Werther Originals left at the side of the bed or perhaps of the massage appliance left on the wardrobe shelf!

At 6 pm we crossed over from Panama to Costa Rica. This was close by to Burica Point. We watched a thunderstorm raging away on our starboard side, on the shore, with lightning flashes lighting up the gaps in the clouds.

Second formal evening

We had had a plate of hors d’ouvres delivered to our cabin at 5 pm. We enjoyed them on our balcony with a glass of wine.

This was our second formal evening with a Captain’s Cocktail Party in the Universe Lounge. We joined the end of the queue on Deck 6 and as we entered we were greeted by the Captain. We sat at the back next to some of earlier dinner companions from California. The Coral Princess Orchestra were playing and the MC invited guests to come and have a dance.

Unlike similar events on P&O this party did have cocktails but had no gin and tonics. I stayed on red wine to accompany all the hors d’ouvres that came our way. The most travelled passengers had clocked up over 900 nights at sea. That being said we were surprised to hear that there were only 200 Elite passengers on this cruise. The prizes were bottles of champagne and for once we didn’t win anything at all.

We joined a small queue at the Bordeaux and shared the table with our fellow guests from California. As there was only five of us on the table it was possible to have lots of anecdotes about cruising and to hear about the other’s experiences on Princess Cruises.

I started with a spicy chicken soup (not clear from the menu), a Caesar salad, an excellent prime rib all followed by yet another chocolate dessert. We chatted for so long that missed the start of the evening’s entertainment.

Back in the room we had to put or clocks back an hour to be ready for Costa Rica.