12 - 10/13/2021 - At Sea to the Panama Canal - 1 Day

We love lazy days at sea.  And this was a good one.  The 8am alarm was a little jarring, but the 9am Coffee Chat with two cadets was beaconing.  I did squeeze in breakfast and these two cadets was really good.  One was from Mexico and the other from the Netherlands.  Ross, our naturalist, followed with a short Q&A.

 

I guess it wasn't a lazy start as Valerie then presented a canned EXC presentation on the Main Stage about the Caribbean.  We slowed it down by heading for the Crow's Nest where I started catching up on my daily blog and soaking in the views and warmth of the sunshine.  If you've never been in the Crow's Nest on a sunny day, it gets very warm from the expansive glass.  We took a break for lunch where I had my customary 6 pieces of sushi and a small deli sandwich.  I also finished updating my blog and then retrieved my good camera to see what wildlife I could photograph.

 

I assumed my favorite picture taking position at the second opening in the front port side of deck 3 (Promenade).  I stood there for 2.5 hours and saw a couple small turtles (tough to photograph) flying fish (also hard to photograph) and booby birds.  I ended up with one of the best pictures I've ever taken of them.

 

 

I try to shoot most of my pictures with a Nikon P900 which has a 83x zoom feature which I really like as I don't like carrying DSLR lenses. This picture was shot at 1/1000's of a second.

 

My dinner was very light as I wasn't hungry.  A two time Olympic gymnast, Lance Ringnald, entertained us on the main stage.  As a 51 year old man, he appears to be in fabulous shape and really worked suspended from the silks!  We have previously seen him, but his act seemed fresh.  Classical British music was next on tap at the Lincoln Center stage.  It was really good.  We capped off the evening at Billboard online where they played and sang a 80's song set.  

 

Whew, that was a relaxing day.  Will I survive another tomorrow? Stay tuned.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 09 - 10/10/2021 - At sea to Puerto Vallarto - A dolphin extravaganza

This was a really lazy day at sea. The only presentations we watched were the Q&A session with Ross, our naturalist, and the Port to Table food demonstration after lunch by Steve the Pinnacle Grill chef. This session covered preparation of carne asada and a Mexican soup. Afterwards, I positioned myself port-side on the Promenade deck up near the bow which is about 30' above the water. The view here was unobstructed and I watched a medium sized turtle float by. About an hour later off in the distance I spotted a number of dolphins.    Suddenly there were dozens and dozens of dolphins swimming around the left side and under the ship. They rode the bow wave, the waves off the mid ship hull and elsewhere out away from the ship. The water was clear and one could see the dolphins' images before they broke through the surface. I saw more dolphins at one time over the next hour than I have previously seen at one time. It was impressive and there had to a...
Read more

Day 08 - 10/09/2021 - An Electric Cabo

This morning we woke up at 6:30am to a room temperature of over 80°.     We realized the air conditioning system works on sea water and we are in much warmer water.     So I called the front desk and a representative was     there by 7am and confirmed the readings.     He indicated there were a lot of complaints.   After a quick breakfast, we reported to the Main Stage and our group was the first one dispatched on the first tender.     It was already hot and projected to hit 90°f.     There was an armed Mexican sailer on the pier and we had a bag check.     Our tour coordinator gathered us up and we made our way to a motor coach for a 45 to 60 minute ride to the venues hi hi was located up the west coast of the Baja peninsula.     Along the way several people saw a whale breech!   My adventure this day was to ride an electric bicycle.     I chose this activity s...
Read more

Day 06 - 10/07/2021 - At Sea to Cabo - 1

Southbound we head at about 14.5 knots (relatively slow) and the temperatures are getting warmer.     Today after the 9am coffee chat with the Kazemek's (Beatles tribute singers), Angela saw a pod of dolphins.     I spent much of the day reading my mystery thriller, Deadly Encounter.       I (and others I've talked with) are a bit disappointed in the lack of enrichment lectures on these sea days.     So in between reading my novel, there was a port short excursion lecture, a culinary arts lecture on chili's (quite good) and a cruise critic Meet & Greet.     We were able to connect with Jeff and Nanette who we cruised with us on the Maasdam in 2019 from Japan to Australia.       One high point of the cruise was reached today in that we observed flying fish.     For us, a cruise is really not complete until we see flying fish.     These flying fish were generally flying...
Read more