Day 30 - Kissing the Fish

 

Usual morning. In Tai Chi Jorge adds a new move each sea day, and this is our 16^th sea day. Most cruises only have a few sea days, and you can see in his teaching where he’s getting into the bits he doesn’t get to do very often. Kudos to him, though, because he’s doing some work in his down time to make sure he’s a step ahead. Today we really worked the last 4 or 5 exercises, which was nice.

After that I went to hear Kevin Lowell who is presenting a series on “Staying Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.” This was rhe 4^th lecture in the series and it was very good – it was about storytelling and was half about using AI and half about personal growth and all well done. I will try to get to the rest of the lectures and maybe go back and listen to the earlier ones.

There was a break until 11 and the Equator crossing celebration at the Seaview pool for the crew. This is a longtime maritime tradition to take sailors from pollywogs to shellbacks. We got up on the back deck about half an hour early and it was already packed, but we managed to score good spots on the starboard side railing on deck 9. It was a good time with ice water, colored meringue, a disgusting beverage concoction and of course fish kissing. Dario was wearing a black robe (ugh, hot!) and white wig and was the barrister presenting the crew, and he had an elaborate script listing the “crimes” of each department. King Neptune and Queen Neptuna were there judging all the crew and sentencing them to fish-kissing (at which we would all chant Kiss the Fish! Kiss the Fish!). The Captain and senior officers were there at the end to send the new shellbacks to sit in the sun or float in the pool. After it was over Captain Cadet (the cadet who looks and behaves like he’s already a Captain, in a good way) was hanging out in a corner of the pool looking very satisfied with the proceedings, and I think that’s a good summary. And as you already saw, we (along with many other passengers) kissed the fish to complete our crossing. It was slimy!

We had 12:15 reservations at the Pinnacle grill for the Rijstaffel Indonesian lunch. It was a fixed menu that started with shrimp crackers and 7 condiments and moved through 3 delicious courses. They had two different sambals, sambal bajak and sambal bawang, and the sambal bajak was absolutely fabulous – we had two small bowls of it. It was a lot of food, but not overwhelmingly so, and it was all really good.

The lunch moved pretty quickly, but it was still almost 2 by the time we got done. While we were there Dario stopped by to check in with Dave about tonight’s star gazing & also to confirm that he’ll be giving a lecture in the Wajang theater later in the cruise. Exciting! I went back to the room and grabbed my ‘uke for ‘uke group. It was a smaller group but still fun, and we learned a new song – Don’t take my sunshine away. We’ve given up on brown eyed girl for the moment, which is good. My C to G7 and back is getting much faster!

My plan had been to go to the gym after, but I stopped in to check the schedule and there was a class there at 3:30. So I grabbed my laptop and went out to deck 7 aft, found a place to set up, and did aerobics for a half hour. It was HOT and I drank my whole 20 ounces. Then I went to the pool, which has gotten pretty warm but still felt good. Back to the room, shower & get ready for dinner. There was lamb again, and it was very good.

We went out to 6 forward to look at the perfectly clear sky and for Dave to do some orienting, which was tricky because the talk will be off the back of the ship – different stars. Then to the show, which we were looking forward to. It was Jesse Kazemek again, this time broadening his palette to include 50s and 60s rockers. It was a fun show with lots of singing along. I went to do some dancing while Dave finished getting ready. Then it was finally time!

Like everything else, the turnout was great for the talk. They’d set out chairs and people brought out more chairs and sat around the edge of the pool. They were able to turn off a lot of lights, so the view south off the back of the ship was pretty good. Dave and Rabbi Richard talked about the movement of the stars and the awesomeness of them while our eyes got used to the dark, and then they took turns speaking. Dave had a green laser and was able to point out a lot of stuff. There’s little wind tonight, which meant that the smoke from the engines was streaming back right overhead – our own local milky way – hiding a lot of stars, and of course clouds came in right over Orion which was the showpiece, but it was an excellent talk. Ilene says Dave should become a lecturer on the ship. I agree.

Reality check: I was checking my mail and there was an e-mail about a Christmas gift exchange. It was in the 80s today, and sunset is at 5:30 pm. It doesn’t feel like people should be talking about Christmas. We’re in for a shock in a few days!

Dario and the pool

Kneeling in front of Neptune & Neptuna
And Getting iced

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting Meringued

Dario reads the charges

 

Scary Beverages

   

Day 29 - Swimming the Equator

 

Behind the scenes: I write these blogs in MS Word, then copy paste into the blogger website. I’ve broken the word documents up into 1-week segments, starting on the 1^st, 8^th, etc, day of the cruise. This is the first day of the last document of the trip. We are sad.

We crossed back over the equator today at around 7, but Captain had said it would be at 4:30 am so we forgot to notice. Other than that the day started out well, with the usual full breakfast and Tai Chi, and then the coffee chat today in the World Stage due to our star chatter, staff captain Rakesh. He is the second in command to the Captain, and is responsible for the security, medical, and deck departments. He’s been with Holland almost 18 years and is a chat veteran, relaxed and funny on stage. Oddly, the one question nobody asked is if/when he might become Captain. He’s on the same 10 week rotation as the Captain – they’re on and off as a team.  Although he is from India, he is married to a Latvian and they live in Latvia with their 4 children, ages 11, 9, 7, and 4. He says being on the ship is his vacation.

Next up, line dancing with Jorge, fun as always. Then time off until lunch, a good time to sit in the explorer lounge and blog with the ocean view. We ate at a two-top in the dining room and had plenty of time to get to Ceptembre’s talk on Pirates. Once again she imparted a good amount of information in an interesting way, including the tidbit that Blackbeard the Pirate would put slow burning fuses in his hair and hat when he was attacking to make himself look more fierce. I think it would work!

Then we were off in different directions. Dave went off to the Premium wine tasting which was arranged  a long time ago, and I headed to the Seaview pool for the "swim the equator" equator crossing party for passengers. It was very crowded – Dario (dressed as King Neptune in a robe and very long wig) kept commenting that he hadn’t expected so many people, but he should know by now that we’re an enthusiastic bunch! He also couldn’t see because the hair of the wig was in his face. Tai Chi Dennis was there so we stuck together. We all got in a big line, then were processed individually. First you got on the deck of the pool and had ice water dumped on your head by Dario (a bucketful!), then you put your hands in more ice water while Clare the assistant cruise director counted to 5, then Mariel dumped another bucketful of ice water on your head and then you swam across the pool. Apparently you’re also supposed to kiss a fish, but they’re combining the fish-kissing with the crew equator ceremony tomorrow. The we all recited a pledge with Dario about being good equator crossers, including the part where he said “I hereby proclaim…” and we all said “I hereby proclaim” but that was his part. It took two tries to get everybody not to repeat it. It was a raucous good time with music and dancing. 

Since I’d already been in the pool I went over to the midships pool (better sloshing & less crowded) and sloshed about for a bit, then showered and went to the gym for Pilates. By the time I got back Dave was back from his wine tasting, which had been fun and full of Jacques telling a lot of stories and forgetting to talk about the wine. A standout was an Amarone della Valpolicella.

Then it was dinner time. Mikey and Linda were having dinner in the Pinnacle, and Dennis and Louise were there already so I thought it would be fun to sit on either side of them. Then it turned out that Louise had invited Marcel, the piano bar guy, to eat with us, and he ended up sitting next to me and Ilene next to Dave. Ilene and Dave had a nice chat, but Louise had a lot to discuss with Marcel, so Dennis and I ended up trying to make conversation over their chat. It was awkward, and our food took forever to arrive, but it was tasty, especially the salted caramel chocolate cake.

Then off to the show, Tricia Kelly, a singer/vocal impressionist and all-around good time. And then off to the Legendary Lido fair, where we played a few games and ate some popcorn and didn’t win any prizes, which is just as well because we really don’t need a Holland America throw blanket. Many people won miniature Lewie the Lions, though, and even though they’re for sale in the shops and we don’t need or even really want one I think everyone in the crowd was unreasonably disappointed not to be taking one home.

Then that was enough! I got us some tea from the Lido while Dave took care of filling our waterbottles from the ice bucket, and then it was time for some relaxing.

This picture is of the giant Lewie, here sitting in the Crow's Nest with today's riddle.