Sea Day between Costa Rica and Guatemala

We’re halfway through the cruise, and I celebrated by finding more things I like to do. My plan was to go to stretch class and then to breakfast in the dining room (they have steel cut oats), but when I got there 15 minutes before class started it was already full. I headed down to the cabin (stopping for a hug and chat with Norma, who had also called it a night early) and we went to the Lido for breakfast. We ended up having a nice conversation with the couple at the next table, who’d lived on a seagoing boat for 7 years and were on their first cruise. They were fun and interesting. Dave took off for yoga and I stayed and chatted a little bit longer. As I walked through the lido I saw some of Aphreen’s family (she and her husband are on the cruise with her husband’s 3 brothers and their wives) but she wasn’t there. When I got to the forward end I saw her doing TaiChi with Stefi (Estephania, of dance class fame) so I joined in and it was excellent. Then it was time to go to bootcamp which has really gotten much harder, and then Suyash said I could turn off the music so I brought my laptop up and practiced the Nia routine Cure for an hour. It was a totally excellent morning for me. Dave went for his walk and sat on the deck and finished his book. He had to change sides of the ship because the wind has picked up and down on deck 3 where he was sitting he was getting covered with sea spray.

We ate lunch with two couples we’ve eaten with before and had a nice time. They were all long cruisers- out for many weeks or even months at a time – and had a lot of stories. After lunch we had some verandah time. We’re high enough up that the spray isn’t a problem and the temperature was just perfect for sitting. Dave headed off for a wine tasting and I did more blogging until it was time to go dance with Stefi.

Every cruise I find something or someone that lights me up; this cruise it is Stefi. Every time I take class with her I’m amazed at how much fun I have. This class – permission to dance – started with a reasonable sized group, and just keeps on growing. This time there were people dancing in the hallway and up in the bar part of the ocean bar, and everybody had a great time. Norma came in late and so of course we had to yell “Cumbia!” a lot. After class I went up to the pool, but it’s not much fun when the water is calm, so I headed down pretty soon to get cleaned up for my appointment in the salon to have a keratin treatment (whatever that is, I got upsold during my haircut). Fimi, the stylist, was running about half an hour late and the treatment was an hour, not the 20 minutes she’d told me, so we ended up later for dinner than usual. But there was no line and we got seated at a 10 top, which turns out to be a little large to hear everybody. I ended up sitting next to Tony and Mary, who met at Oxford and then married other people and lived their lives until about 9 years ago when both of their spouses had died and Tony wrote to Mary to see how she was. Seems to be a theme. Conversation was awkward at first, but eventually the dining room emptied out and we could hear each other.

After dinner I hung out in the ocean bar for some oldies, and Dave went to the show which he said was very good. Tom and Barbara from dinner the night before were there, and Tom surprised everyone (especially Barbara!) by getting up and getting down to one of the faster songs. Norma was dancing too, so of course after every song we had to yell “Cumbia!” and Anna the singer had to say, “…but before the Cumbia…” These are my peeps for sure. We went to bed shortly after they stopped playing and the show got out because we had another early morning shore excursion.