During the night the ship passed between Cuba and Haiti and entered the Caribbean. The ship was still pushing on at over 20 knots.
The sky was overcast as we looked out over the balcony.
Our cruise through the Panama Canal started in Fort Lauderdale and would take us to Aruba, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and finally San Francisco and then onto Monterey.
Our second sea day after leaving Fort Lauderdale was Saturday the 14th October and now we were in the Caribbean.
Morning in the Caribbean Sea
Breakfast was late again for us in the Bordeaux restaurant. We shared a table with a couple from Ohio and a couple from California.The gentleman was a retired diplomat who we had sat with at breakfast before. President Trump and Brexit dominated the dinner conversation again.
My order of a ham and cheese omelette was delivered as a cheese omelette with ham and bacon on the side. The waiter had had to deal with much more complicated orders from our table companions, so I’m guessing such a simple order was unusual!
The lady from Ohio was a Trump supporter so the conversations became more lively than usual. Her husband was a Clinton supporter, so their conversation could be heard continuing as they left the table.
The retired diplomat regaled us with stories about where he had worked and just as interesting about American history. He was particularly helpful in the information he gave us about Cartegena. He explained how far away the ship would be docked from the Old City.
After breakfast we carried on talking in the Atrium and he told me about designing ship control systems using only 4k of core memory on the then compter systems. He reckoned if the full system had been implemented the ship would have had to tow a barge behind just for more core memory!
In the restaurant above the Panama sale was in full swing. This was an eclectic collection of T-shirts and items from around the ports to be visited on this cruise. I looked at the T-shirts but XL were a good 2 inches too short and XXL a good 12 inches too wide! No sales to us then.
After picking up my camera we went back to the Atrium and booked on one of the shore excursions for Categena so we could see the Old City.
Our mile walk was three times around the Promenade deck. One side of the ship was hot and the other windy. The windy side was even catching spray from the ship’s bow. This side was like walking in a wet misty day but with warm mist.
We paid a second visit to the International cafe for a coffee and tea for me. After our exercise we rewarded ourselves with a cake. Our table companions were from Australia but were originally from Scotland. Once again the conversation steered itself towards Brexit.
The couple were on a mammoth trip away from home planning to visit family in the United States after having been in Europe. We sat and talked for over an hour, so long in fact that we were ready for lunch. The cafe is next to the casino and now smoking was allowed. The noise from casino was sometimes very load as someone won on a slt machine and even though it was 12.30 the casino was packed.
Afternoon in the Caribbean
Lunch for us was again a sit down waiter service in the Bordeaux. Our table companions were from Australia and from Washington State. Once we had listened to everyone’s opinions on Trump and Brexit we could get down to the serious business of everyone’s travel history. These Australians were on a mammoth tour after having been in Europe and were panning an almost 90 day trip around the USA. This was the maximum possible stay for their visa. Our table companions all lived close to coasts where whales were abundant and could be watched from the shoreline. Listening to how whales had come back to both the East coast of Australia and Washington State was indeed heartening for the future.
Hearing about groups of whales under the Golden Gate or surrounding a cruise ship on its way to Alaska gave us extra hope of seeing whales later this trip.
The Australian lady had had to visit a hospital in Florida and this moved the conversation onto healthcare. We then had a good explanation of how it worked in Australia (close to our own NHS) and an explanation of Obama Care and perhaps why it is being repealed by Trump.
Through these conversations I stuck with a single chef’s salad and a pot of tea.
Deck 7 was a lot busier as we were not the only passengers wanting to ‘walk off’ our food. Six laps of the ship clocked up over 2 miles of walking. Just as earlier there were no passing ships, birds or sea life – just the Caribbean Sea.
At 2 pm we were South of Haiti and still travelling at over 20 knots. All the exercise and excitement of the day caught up with me and I fell asleep when I was supposed to be writing this journal and woke up at 5 pm!
We decided it was time to try out the exclusive Elite lounge held at the back of the Explorer’s Lounge on Deck 6. This had drink specials and complimentary hors d’oeuvres.
We tried the gin based Bouleevardier for $6.50 but next time I decided to stick to a simple beer for the same price or less.
Back in our room we divided up one of complementary small bottles of gin, added the tonic and sat out on the balcony waiting for the sun to set. The heat had gone from the day so it was a comfortable place to sit unlike earlier in the day.
We sat for so long that our steward thought that we’d gone for dinner and came in to make up our room. We sat in the growing dark hoping the sunset would improve.
This evening we had no trouble getting into the Bordeaux restaurant and we were joined by 2 couples from California and one from Scotland, Conversations about Trump dominated for most of the evening.
I started with shrimps and scallops followed by a pork chop. The chop was so tough I was unable to even begin to cut the mounds of fat off it. I sent it back and ordered the chicken on the recommendation of the Scottish gentleman. The sundae was two scoops of ice-cream with strawberry jam – hardly a sundae.
Zach Winningham
We left at 9 am to head off to the Princess Theatre to listen to Zach Winningham accompanied by the orchestra singing songs from the 60s and 70s.
He was excellent with the music interspersed with both jokes and stories. He had once opened for James Taylor in London and told us the back story for ‘Fire and Rain’.
James used to send his new songs to an old friend back home called Suzanne for her opinion as he didn’t trust those around him. Her parents put her into a clinic for addiction and she committed suicide there. Listening to the first verse of the song now makes perfect sense.
After the show it was time to go back to our cabin for the night.