Day 12 – Saturday – Oct 6 – Back at Sea

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Hello from the Island Princess, cruising in the Pacific again. We are back in the Central Time Zone after resetting the clocks last night.



Before we describe today’s activities, let’s explain that we have added photos to yesterday’s blog AND have added some additional thoughts to that entry which we did not remember last night. There is even more to say about Costa Rica, but your will have to settle for what’s in the blog now.



Oh well, one more thought. Costa Rica turns out to be directly south of Pittsburgh. A lot of people would have thought it was further west, but that’s what the guide said. Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Also where we were is almost the geographic center of the Americas (tip of northern Canada and tip of southern Chile).



Also, just before we sailed last night they kept calling for 2 people to call Passenger Services immediately. Finally we sailed, so we’re expecting that two people are having a long hard swim today trying to catch up with the ship in Panama when we arrive tomorrow morning.



Now, today is a Sea Day and we planned to make it kind of restful. We got up about 7:30 CT and sorted the laundry. We got everything in the machines and then went to the breakfast buffet. When we finished eating, the clothes were clean and we moved them to the dryers. About that time, several people came in needing to do some laundry, so fortunately we were ahead of the crowd.



Janet isn’t feeling so well today and did not sleep very well last night. Maybe the rainforest did not agree with her sinuses. She has been struggling with her allergies for several days, so now she has started taking the antibiotics she had brought along (good planning). However she did not feel too bad to go to the knitters meeting again this morning. She had gotten a tote bag in Costa Rica and wanted to show it to her knitter friends.



David finished the laundry and then went to the Enrichment Lecture at 10:00. Today was a fairly technical description about how the locks work. The presenter explained why a “sea-level canal” would not work, even if they had been able to dig deep enough to connect the 2 oceans. It turns out that Sea Level on the Atlantic is about 9 inches higher than the Pacific. Even though there is very little tidal difference (low vs high tide) on the Atlantic side, but there are several feet difference on the Pacific side. The net result is that an open canal at sea-level would have to have been much wider than it is currently dug, MUCH deeper than the current canal, but it would also have about a 4 knot current flowing back and forth in such a canal. For those reason, they have the locks in the current canal. There were also interesting explanations of how & why the water flows into the canals and what effect it had on the ships. Anyway, David found it really interesting.



We met up in the room afterwards and David worked on processing the Puntarenas pictures and Janet worked on some sewing. Shortly later the cabin steward came to clean up the cabin, so we scooped up our stuff and went down to the Patisserie in the Atrium. Janet was able to get one of her fancy coffees there. While we were there, she repaired a broken strap in our much-used blue travel bag (next trip we will plan to change to using our backpack).



We stayed at the Patisserie until about noon and then went up to the Horizon Court. Janet wanted a bowl of chicken noodle soup to make herself feel better, but they only had egg drop soup which was close enough for her. David had the pork tenderloin and potatoes for lunch. Our main alternative lunches were either a repeat of the English Pub Lunch or a Caribbean Buffet on the pool deck (neither sounded good to Janet).



After lunch we went back to our cabin and Janet took a nap. While she was sleeping, David went to a 1:00 presentation on Alaska. The narrator described the various tour options and it reminded him of our trip back in 2004. We have a couple of trips planned in the near future, but we might go back to Alaska in 2015 if there are other people who would like to go with us (of course there is more world for us to see if nobody wants to wait that long for their own trip to Alaska).



After that, David came back and woke Janet up in time for her to go to another card-making activity at 2:30. Today was a paper folding class. First we cut and folded some patterned paper and glued to another piece of card stock to create a bookmark. It is one of those crafts that end up looking more difficult than it is. Then we folded several paper circles and created a flower. We glued the flower to a blank card. Again it looks more difficult than it is. We certainly have quite a collection of cards from this trip.



While she was doing that, David went to a napkin folding demo. He actually learned to fold a napkin to look like several different things. But you need a well starched, square, linen napkin, so don’t be looking for fancy folds in our kitchen in the evening.



Then we rested a while and got cleaned up for dinner. Janet had the shrimp cocktail, caesar salad and the roast beef with Yorkshire pudding. Her taste buds are not working real well but it seemed like a good meal. David had more Fettuccini Alfredo, chilled Coconut Soup, and broiled Salmon steak.



Janet went ahead and rested for the evening while David went to the show in the Princess Theater. Tomorrow is a relatively early day. The show was by a comedian guitar player and it was really good. David hopes to see his next show in a couple of days.



Question: What’s the difference between ignorance and apathy?

One the one hand I don’t know, and on the other hand I don’t care.



Your know you are really trailer-park trash if you’ve been married 3 times and still have the same Mother-in-Law.



Janet considers me her consultant. I guess that’s what you would call it. We were at the buffet today and I made a suggestion of something for her to eat. She said that if she wanted my advice then she’d ask for it.



Kansas is the state where every town is named for the tall silver water tower standing near it.



Well, maybe they were funnier in the show – must be the delivery. And he was very good playing the guitar and sang pretty well too.



We are going to defer the pictures until tomorrow. It is time to finally have that rest we’ve been talking about all day. They would just be pictures from around the ship, so nothing very special. Good night.

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