Day 7 - At Sea

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Geo: 21.3422, -57.7332

I awake to the creaking sounds of a ship at sea. At least I hope it's the ship creaking and not my bones. Today is our first sea day of the crossing. We made steady progress north eastward through the night. The early morning temperature is still pleasantly warm as we are still in the sub-tropics. The days will get cooler now as we make our way towards the Azores.

Sea days are strange days. Strange to look out from the balcony and know there is nothing before us but league after endless league of water. I have no idea what is lurking beneath the waves. Marine life out this far is likely to be Sailfish, Bluefin Tuna or migrating Whales and Turtles. I know for certain that the Azores is an excellent location for whale watching so as we approach I will keep my beady eyes on the waves around us.

There are a myriad of things to do on a sea day on a cruise ship. The daily Cruise Compass lists all of the exciting opportunities for us on board today. Such as:

7.30 Stretch & Relax - The Adventure Fitness Centre
8.00 Morning Mass - Imperial Lounge
9.30 Adult Jewelry Workshop - Blue Moon Lounge (not sure what adult jewelry is)
10.00 Alison's Progressive Trivia - Imperial Lounge
11.00 Seminar - Look 10 years younger in 10 mins (methinks would take more than 10 mins)
13.30 Worlds Sexiest Man Competition - Main Pool Deck - Avoid at all costs
15.00 Premium Scotch Tasting - Schooner Bar - any excuse to get sozzled
16.30 Napkin Artistry - Part 2 (damn it - I missed part 1)

The above is just a tiny selection of the things to do onboard. Of course you need not do any of them if you just want to relax on a sun lounger and listen to music.

We decide to head to Alison's Progressive Trivia as we did something similar on our last TA on Liberty and it was fun. We had tentatively agreed to team up with Mhairi and Tam earlier in the week but had not seen them for a couple of days. We arrived early to bag some seats. We gave ourselves the team name of Pete's Piranhas thinking it would be just us two. Two Australians (Mary & Harry from Adelaide) asked if they could join us taking us to 4 and then at the last minute Mhairi and Tam showed up. We did well scoring 14/20. A few complaints from Americans around us on the British bias of some of the questions, Alison is a Lancashire lass from Darwen, so that could be why but to be fair there were only 1 or 2 questions that could be classed as that.

Then we go to the Gym after the quiz but it is so busy that all the equipment is in use. We wait awhile to see if any free up but they don't so we go to the Diamond Lounge and sit out on the open deck enjoying coffee and cookies. At 12 noon every day we get the Captains Announcement with details on course, sunset/sunrise times etc. At the end we all have to set our watches on one hour. This will happen every day we are at sea as we sail through time zones. It effectively means that every day is only 23 hours long.

We lunch in Johnny Rockets where the staff treat us to a dance routine (they have to do this every 30 mins). Some of the staff are less enthusiastic than others and you can clearly see on their faces they would much rather be doing something else. Its all good fun though. I spend the rest of the day relaxing on the cabin balcony. Peter heads for the gym which after the big lunch I had does not appeal.

We dress for dinner and head to the Imperial Lounge. Sue is there but Malcolm is not as he is feeling a little under the weather. Its just Peter and I for dinner tonight which again is very nice. The theme for dinner tonight is mostly Italian. The lasagne I have is excellent and Peter raves about his pork tenderloins (no that's not a euphemism).

We enjoy post dinner brandies in the Champagne Bar before heading to the casino. I bomb out early again but Peter comes up trumps winning $75 from a $30 stake. We cash out and head back to our room.

We are both looking forward to the morning as we have a 3 hour ship tour that will take us behind the scenes on the workings of this giant ship.

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