Thursday Sept 13th – 4th Day at Sea

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Today was a pretty lazy day so this won’t be a very long report. We slept really late after our activities last night. David slept until 9:00 for the first time in his memory. He got up and dressed quietly and went out to get a glass of juice and a pastry. He took the laptop and finished composing yesterday’s blog. Then he returned to the cabin and went out on the balcony to read. Janet slept until about 10:30. After getting dressed and editing the blog, we went to the Chef’s Galley just before they closed the last of the Breakfast Buffet. This means that we actually missed a meal (lunch) today – horrors, how did we survive!

We had tickets for the 1:30 planetarium show. With the clocks being moved forward again today, we actually only had about an hour to kill before the show. Happily they were having a sale of odds-n-ends in the main hallway on deck-3, so Janet was able to find a Tote Bag as her souvenir from this cruise. We then sat in the Chart Room to read for a few minutes before going to the Illuminations Room. While we were waiting we heard them ring the Ship’s Bell in the Grand Plaza down the hall from the Chart Room.

Today’s planetarium show was “Wildest Weather in the Solar System”. It was an interesting show about the inhospitable aspects of the weather on different planets & moons. Mercury is regularly bombarded with solar radiation. Venus is smothered in clouds creating a furnace-effect from captured greenhouse style temperatures. Mars has incredible high-wind dust devils and dust storms. Jupiter has intense lightning storms across the surface of this gaseous planet. Saturn’s moon Titan appears to have potential liquid rivers and lakes on the surface, but composed of liquidized methane gas. They skipped Uranus and went to Neptune’s moon Trion. It has only 2 seasons – summer and winter in a 43 year cycle – but the slight temperature change between seasons is still enough to cause tremendous volcanic eruptions across the surface. Altogether, Earth’s weather can sometimes be uncomfortable for us, but it is far superior to anywhere else in our solar system.

After that show we went to the Royal Court Theater to listen to a Classical Piano Music recital. The lady was very skillful and we enjoyed the show.

Next Janet went to 3:00 her Knitting meeting. David took his camera to snap a couple of photos around the ship before returning to the cabin to read some more of his book out on our balcony. Janet came back to the cabin after making more progress on her scarf. She had met 2 ladies today who have signed up for the round-trip cruise on Cunard’s Queen Victoria around South America. No one at home needs to panic – we are not considering this newly offered cruise. Back in the cabin Janet reverted back to working on one of her needlework projects, only to break one of her needles and to use up all of her green thread. Don’t worry - she has more needles and other threads to work with.

Before leaving home, Janet had read in one of the AARP magazines that this MQ2 crossing was something that every retired person should do once. Actually we have really enjoyed this restful cruise and have reminded ourselves several times how much nicer it is than a transatlantic flight. We might not do it again but we do give it high marks for a nice restful crossing.

Today the QM2 continued on her circle route across the Atlantic. We crossed the mid-point as we crossed the Maxwell Fracture Zone. The depth beneath the keel was less than 1000 meter as we were crossing the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Shortly afterwards the depth dropped again to 3500 meters (approximately 1.9 miles).

This evening was Casual Attire in the dining room. After having some wine in the cabin we changed into appropriate dinner clothing and went to the Britannia Dining Room. Tonight Janet had the iceberg lettuce salad and veal scaloppini. David had gazpacho soup and Crab Cannoli. For dessert we each had the deconstructed strawberry cheesecake.

The live entertainment in the Royal Court Theater was a ventriloquist, but that did not really interest us. Instead was chose to go to the movie. It was something called “Atomic Blonde”. Frankly it was not very good. The best news is that at least we didn’t pay anything to see it.

Back in our cabin we checked again on the progress/projections of Hurricane Florence. That is really too bad. Good night from the fairly smooth mid-Atlantic.

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Photos

Britannia Dining Room
Looking down from Balcony to where we eat.

Comments

[Janel]

Hurricane Helene
We've been watching Florence closely since we're well acquinted with coastal hurricanes but it looks to be south of Stacy...but there's also Hurricane Helen which is older and weaker but headed straight for England! You'll probably get through there before it shows up. Sounds like a great trip.