Smooth Sailing Seas Seeking Solar Solace

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The morning found us still with a bank of clouds far off our starboard side. It has been this way since we left the Azores sailing under blue skies. The other day I had tried to open the door to the balcony in the morning, but a stiff wind made me use all my force to push the door open. The winds were brisk, it was chilly, and I didn’t spend much time outside. This morning to door opened easily and the early morning air is what I would call pleasant. Sharon went off to mass and I was still finishing up the blog. I asked her to get me a pecan croissant if she found one, and we both understood that I would be meeting her in the Crow’s Nest for Travel Trivia this morning.



We all assembled in a nice section by the window for travel trivia. There wasn’t time for Sharon and I to do our Sudoku challenge so we planned to do that later. Sharon did get me what she said was the last pecan croissant. Jim was surprised because he said there was quite a mob (a trivia term to describe a large group of hungry humans) had descended on the pastries and rolls when they were put out the first thing that morning. I thought that Sharon had had a good day with her bingo and slot winnings; until, we heard how well Lucia had done, winning about $1,000 playing the video poker game. Jim said when she had come back to their cabin and he heard of her winnings, he asked to borrow her card because there was a slot machine that he’d had his eye on, and when he returned he’d added another $300 to her ship-card. Stewart and Vanne were finding everyone’s good luck unbelievable. Even I was only about $100 ahead at the tables, and I’m still waiting for my first bingo on the Zuiderdam! Maybe today will be good to me. KK announced that today’s questions would be about some of her favorite places. She then went into a rather lengthy and pointless dissertation of how we might use this information to figure out what she’s looking for in an answer by figuring out what she might consider a favorite place. I guess this game is all about KK; but, some of us still need to get to breakfast. Today’s answers were cities. For example, “When I go to this city, I go first directly to Café DuMond.” Even I knew this answer having been taken there by Sharon to have one of their famous beignets when we visited New Orleans two years ago. The easy one was “In this city what happens there stays there”. We thought that we’d done pretty well; but, one team had gotten them all right!



We went to breakfast directly afterwards. I had Swiss Muesli and a bowl of cantaloupe and bananas. Sharon had a waffle with chocolate chips and whipped cream. We ate out by the pool in front of the Lido.



Sharon and I went down to the casino; where, Sharon found her machine “Fishing with Bob” (or something like that). I watched a little blackjack; but, the Fun-21 table was locked up. I watched one lady make the cardinal sins of blackjack players. She announced that she only needed to win her $5 bet and she would reach her $100 goal and leave. She was having fun playing with the “House’s Money”. I could have wrung her neck… The house’s money is sitting in the tray. The chips in front of her that she’s playing with are hers, all of them are hers! And whether she’s won them at the table, or saved all year to put together a bankroll, it should be considered just as dear either way. The easiest thing to do is to lose money that you view as “not really being yours.” Do I need to tell you, she lost that goal-reaching bet? And on the next bet, she had the opportunity to double-down. So that became a goal-reaching bet as well. And things were looking good when she drew a nine to go with her original first two cards (a five and a six). The dealer drew a 7-card 21 (6-2-5-A-A-A-5). That should have been her cue that it was time to quit. It was painful to watch what followed. When I walked away she only had three red chips of the house’s money left. I checked in with Sharon to see how she was doing; but, the bonus games that she was chasing were alluding her. I decided to return to the cabin for a bit; but, I passed the lady playing blackjack by herself sitting at third base. There was no doubt about it. Now she was playing with her chips. When Sharon come back to the cabin she’d lost half of her $20 daily limit.



I went up to have my lunch in the Lido. I had some of the Indonesian noodles and Indonesian beef. I also chose several pieces of sushi with wasabi, ginger and sliced green chili peppers. I was careful with the wasabi today. It is a bit moister than what I’m accustomed to in the States, and quite a bit more potent. It actually took my breath away, not to the extent that the wasabi oil had done on the river boat in China where it seemed I was in pulmonary arrest; but, I could definitely feel the distress my lungs were registering. The noodles and beef were quite good. I then went to dessert bar and was able to get both chocolate chip cookies for Sharon and macadamia nut cookies with white chocolate chip cookies for me. I then placed the order for Sharon’s burger at the Dive-In. Her burger and fries were quickly ready. I then got her a bowl of two-scoops of chocolate ice cream; and, a waffle cone with cookies and cream for me… and I brought all of this booty, by myself, back to the cabin where I finished my waffle cone.



Unlike yesterday, when it was hard to find a place to play Team Trivia, we had another choice area on the port side with a table. We’d gotten some Sudoku forms for scratch paper for trivia; but, Sharon and I decided to use them for their intended use first. Sharon was still beaming about her victory over me yesterday in the Hard game. It’s time to put her in her place. I won the first game, by a smidgeon. We both seemed to be scribbling rapidly in the Hard game, and then Sharon paused as she was concerned that she’d made a mistake. It was just some sloppy writing, and once Sharon sorted out her scrawl, she was back on track. But it was enough to give me a lead. I finished to puzzle in pretty good time, and Sharon gave up earning what I affectionately call a big “DNF”. Vanne brought back a score sheet for us and Mike started with “Which Shakespearean character has the most lines with 1,422 of them?” When in doubt, go with the ever trusty “Hamlet” answer when it comes to the many Shakespeare questions. We didn’t know which female artist was the first to debut atop the charts… hadn’t a clue it was Whitney Houston. Sharon knew what the ice cream bar is that had its 90^th anniversary in 2011. Stewart and Vanne, “Well we don’t have those, do we?” I guess it’s one of those American things. Eskimo Pie. When it came to, “What company has the motto, ‘It’s everywhere you want to be’?” Stewart suggested American Express. I doubt that Visa will be happy about that! “Where would you find your mound of Jupiter or girdle of Venus?” Most of us didn’t hear the “your” in the question when we came up with “Moon”. It is found in your palm… which Valle was trying to express. Stewart wasn’t having any of that answer; and, when the answer was announced Sharon noted that now the two of them are even (from the 5-sided banana incident at yesterday’s trivia). We came up with the name of the billionaire who sank with the Titanic, even if we weren’t confident in our answer “Astor”. We were tied for second with two other teams; but, we lost by three! One team missed just one question. We got the bonus question because it was one we’d missed on the Nieuw Amsterdam.



Sharon and I went on down to the casino. Sharon’s machine was available so she started to play. The Fun-21 table was closed so I went over and watched the Blackjack tournament that was in session. Six players were competing. Players play seven hands. It looks like they’re given about $2,000 in hundred dollar chips to start with for a $20 buy-in fee (so the chips are actually a penny a point… sort of like slots). The leader board shows the current leader at $10,000 followed closely by the lady with the Wang-Wang from the day before with $9,900. Players were making opening bets that seemed to range from $500 to $1,200. With four hands left to play three players had already lost their stake, and the lady in the middle made a $1,500 bet. She had the chance to double-down and had to sweat out the dealer turning over a hole card that gave the dealer eleven; but, the dealer eventually obliged by busting. The player made a large bet on the fifth hand and was rewarded with blackjack. She now had $11,500 in front of her, good enough for first place. She bet $100 on the next hand and won that hand too. She had pushed the first hand (with twenty) and then won five straight hands. She bet $100 on the final hand and for some strange reason felt obliged to double down holding a hard-13 against a dealer’s jack. She lost that bet but soon found her name atop the leader board. I noticed that there was now a dealer at the Fun-21 table, so I sat down. About then Sharon came by, wished me good luck and said she was returning to our cabin, and gave the thumbs down when my eyes inquired how she had done. I was more patient than perhaps I should have been, losing eight or nine straight hands, all with a minimum bet of $5; but, I doubled down unsuccessfully on two of them. I was now looking for an opportunity to either get back to even or make a small profit. I used the surrender rule a couple times to limit my losses; once, saving half of my bet against a dealer’s blackjack! When I sensed that the cards were turning I pressed a little bit and was rewarded by recovering $25, or about half of what I was down. I then ran into a bit of bad luck, losing four straight hands and it was time to regroup after losing a double down. A few hands later I was winning hands again; but, needed to buy in for more chips to continue. I made my largest bet yet, lost that. I followed that with a larger bet, and my pair of kings held up. Having trouble winning two hands in a row, I pulled back to a minimum bet and my 18 against the dealer’s 7 wound up a push when the dealer revealed an ace as her hole card. On my next hand the dealer made 21 which bested me. I made another large bet, but less than my largest bet and I held 19 against the dealer’s 6. The dealer turned over a Queen and then an eight to bust. Again I pulled back to the minimum $5 bet, and again I lost that. I noticed that one of the beverage stewards had stopped to watch my play from behind me. I then made a $75 bet. The dealer had a 6 and I was holding a pair of aces. The nice thing about splitting aces in the game of Fun-21 (or Spanish-21) is that the rules revert to the pre-Thorpe rules for blackjack. These days, when you split aces, you will only get one card to go with your ace, and you usually are not allowed to re-split the aces, should you get another ace. This is because the pre-Thorpe rules made splitting aces way too favorable for the player. Now, something happened that seldom happens to me. My first card on my ace was a jack. I win, because in Fun-21 the player wins all 21’s so the dealer doesn’t have the opportunity to push. And when I got a ten on the other ace it was over and I was way-way in the black… and even though some might think they were playing with the house’s money now, I still look at it as mine. I followed that with a $5 bet and won that. And I was soon in a parlay that found me winning a total of nine hands in a row, winning a double down at $20 and another at $25. I lost the final bet of $31 but was up about $200 and cashed out. The beverage steward commented that I’d won nine hands in a row.



I went back to the cabin and we worked on some documentation that the mortgage company had requested regarding our monthly bank statements. We sort of neglected getting these to them for October when November rolled around and Sharon had gotten an email yesterday requesting some additional information.



It was Sharon’s turn to buy bingo cards today at the $20,000 jackpot bingo session; which, started a bit later today… cards on sale at 4:30 and game scheduled to start no sooner than 4:45 PM. We found a table in the front middle, and I asked Sharon why she didn’t find one of the larger oval tabletops like we had yesterday when she won. We had one of the small round ones but we were lucky to get that! Sharon looked at the cards a little bit before I shamed Sharon into letting me pick my card… I just took the top one. As it turns out none of the cards had all of Sharon’s lucky numbers on one square for any of the games. The lady playing to the left us was the first to stand in the simple bingo game to a chorus of boos. Then a surprising thing happened on the next call, I found myself standing along with two others who just stood up behind me, and early in the game! Five calls later it seemed like half of the room was standing. Then the guy next to us on the right calls “Bingo”, and he wasn’t even standing. I sat down and jokingly said to Sharon “Cheater, cheater, he wasn’t even standing…” The man’s wife felt it necessary to explain that he has trouble standing; but, he had no trouble at all running up to Andy to get his Bingo verified. And it was indeed, a valid Bingo. The second game was the 4-Corners game, which is what I predicted to Sharon, due to the late start I figured Andy was trying to get done so that people could get to dinner. Well, Andy didn’t call a very interesting 4-Corners game for us. The woman in front of us stood up after the third ball called. She repeated the mantra that we’d all felt before, hating to stand first only to watch others catch up. Andy announced her standing by playing the string quartet version of “Hallelujah” over and over and over again, pausing it between each refrain. Just one more he said, and she was thoroughly embarrassed with everyone in the room staring at her, and no doubt envying her card in prime contention for the $160 prize. Everyone knew that she needed a “B”! And Andy called “B-10” and the room gave out a collective gasp when there was no “Bingo”. Andy then obliged the rest of us with five consecutive “O” calls, and this first early stander was no accompanied by half a dozen posers hoping to poach her prize. Andy played some tension raising “Jaws” theme music for one of his favorite numbers, “B-8”; but, even this didn’t help this early stander in the column she needed. The man one table over from her was standing now though. When Andy called “The Baby Ball of Bingo, ‘B-1’” both the first and last standers shouted out “Bingo” simultaneously. So the split the pot. Expecting Andy to call for a “Small-X” game, we were both surprised and happy that he chose instead the “Bix-X” game. Sharon started out well hoping to win the $215 prize in the game she’d won the day before; but, her early run of good numbers dried up and she hit a dry spell. There was an early riser to thunderous boos, and then Sharon popped up. It seemed that I wasn’t even in this game, still needing three numbers or more. Someone else shouted “Bingo” and our hopes for two-in-a-row were dashed. We both had cards that seemed like contenders in the early going; although, my top square which had started out so well dried up and soon lagged the other two by an insurmountable margin. Sharon got down to having two squares that needed just two numbers; while, I had two that needed three when someone else claimed the “Bingo”.



We arrived at dinner just past 5:30 PM and sat at a table for six just off the starboard side windows near the stern. Another couple and a solo man joined us. We were the first to be seated for a change in quite a while. I had the smoked duck appetizer, which I’d never had before, but found it to be delicious consisting of half a dozen or so thin slices of smoked duck. There weren’t a lot of things that fell in the “Gotta try that” category for me, so I thought it a good time to have the French Onion soup which I enjoy. It’s something I try not to order because of the calories, and there are so many places that you can find delicious French onion soup. I prefer to try new things that I might not otherwise have a chance to sample. For my entrée I chose the Chef Salad with Chicken. Sharon had the “Everyday Chicken” and her Special Meal baked potato. We both had and enjoyed the Opera Cake.



We had ample time to make it up to the Crow’s Nest to join Jim for Pub Trivia. I know we had ample time because there was enough for me to rush back down to the cabin to fetch our pens. I got on to the elevator along with two other couples going down. Before the door could close, a hand reached in stopping them, and a very nimble twenty-something in a tight-fitting leotard workout outfit pop into our midst, saying “Sorry, thanks.” She presses the button for the Lido. Just as quickly as she’d popped in, she popped out again one deck below. As the door closes the one gentleman says to the other, “Right then. I admire her dedication for working out and keeping fit (his wife shot him a dirty look for noticing how fit she was); but, it sort of defeats the purpose to use the lift to go down one flight, what?” We all just chuckled. When I returned Vanne and Stewart had joined us. I knew what the center division in a backgammon board is called. When the answers were reviewed, few other teams seem to know that it is called the “Bar”. We were stumped by “Which of the five senses are likely to diminish after eating too much food?” For some reason, this sense is one that you seem to loose after lots of things, like getting struck by lightning! Why would we say “taste” for both of these, when it’s so obviously “hearing”. Not! Well the answer Andy was looking for was indeed “hearing”. We should just go with “hearing” the next time we get a “What Sense Do you Lose” question. There are a number of them! We couldn’t come up with “What by product Coca-Cola sells to the Pharmaceutical companies?” How could we miss this one? Cocaine: Pretty obvious when you think about it! Vanne correctly suggested “What animal will aggressively defend its young with such determination that they have been known to bite a crocodile clean in half?” That Crock-Chomping momma is a Hippo! When Andy asked “What is the point called around a black hole from which nothing can escape?” I wrote down “Vanishing Point”; but, didn’t think that that was right. I knew it was a two-word answer, and Jim agreed that my thought wasn’t right. Then he blurted out “Something Horizon”, and we had our answer: “Event Horizon”. Teamwork! We went with “Voyager” as the object in space travelling at 66,700 miles per hour; unfortunately, we apparently all are travelling this fast as Earth hurdles through space about the sun. Sharon wanted to know how I came up with “What monster exhales radioactive breath?” I told her that “Godzilla” is the only monster I know of, and nobody else had come up with anything. Everyone seemed to know which herb is known as “Nature’s Mouthwash”. It’s parsley. The bonus question was “How many times thinker is blood than water?” Andy bounded the answer from 1 to 10. Jim was saying 1 or 2. I wanted 8. Stewart and Vanne were talking but couldn’t come up with anything. Sharon doesn’t guess anything if she doesn’t know (or think she knows) an answer. Stewart was okay with “3”; but, Andy was looking for “6”! We missed the bonus question; and, we missed out on making the tie-breaker round. “How many pounds of pressure does it take to rip off your ear?” How many do you think? Would you believe that the numeric range for the “thicker than water” question would apply here as well? Well it would. Andy says the answer is 7 pounds of pressure. I guess that gives some guidance for anyone in the market for buying earrings… better keep them below 7 pounds.



The Show was a reprise of the comedian who did more of his ad lib give and take repartee with the audience. He talked for about 20 minutes and again had the audience in stitches. Then came White Magic and the show starts with an illusion that we’d seen on “Brain Games”. And it was done starting his act on the large screen hanging behind the stage. You see and hear the magician talking to the audience. He fans out eight super-sized playing cards showing the audience a fan of royal cards including the Jack of Diamonds, King of Clubs, Queen of Hearts, King of Diamonds, Ace of Hearts, Jack of Spades, Queen of Clubs and Ace of Clubs. Then he asks each person in the audience to pick a card, and he will show you something really amazing. Go ahead, you try it as well… pick one of the cards that I’ve listed above! Got it. Fine, don’t forget your card. He then turns all of the cards over, he shuffles the 8 cards mixing their order, places them in a single stack on the table and taps the top of the stack. There now, he claims to have made the card that we picked disappear. He counts out each of the cards face down from the stack and you see that indeed there are just seven cards in the stack now. And he fans the cards so that we can see them, revealing the Queen of Spades, Ace of Spades, Jack of Hearts, Queen of Diamonds, King of Hearts, Ace of Diamonds and Jack of Clubs. See… Your card wasn’t among these, was it! But what captivated the audience most was his partner, who literally is a human pretzel. I declare. I’m sure that the things that she was doing with her body is probably illegal in a dozen states.

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