Day 07 - 10/08/2021 - At Sea to Cabo - 2

This second sea day on our way to Cabo was another leisurely one.  The most jarring event was when our room steward knocked on our door before 8am awaking us from our sound sleep.  We're going to put out a 'Do not Disturb' signs on future sea days.  Tomorrow we need to be up early for an exciting adventure testing a new mode of transportation.

 

The coffee chat today was with the head chef from India and the Food & Beverage manager who was from Turkey.  When I asked the question 'What was the most difficult thing to adjust to in this Covid world?', he responded with a description of being on the Westerdam in Asia and being unable to discharge the passengers for many weeks until Cambodia accepted them.  He then was one of 4 chefs who stayed on board for 18 months when the staffing dropped to 100 to just maintain the ship.  He likened it to a ghost ship.  

 

It's been a while since we have attended a future cruise presentation and after watching it, it appears that HAL is ramping up.  For us there are a couple of interesting itineraries.  One of those was a San Diego RT to the sea of Cortez.  But unlike the 2020 Maasdam cruise that was cancelled, this one only has two new ports.  As to the other one, that will be a mystery for now.

 

After lunch we spent the bulk of the afternoon walking and lounging on the Promenade deck.  There were lots of flying fish and Masked Boobies (birds).  The flying fish today flew both singly and in schools.  The boobies circled overhead scanning the water for their dinner.  Suddenly they would plunge vertically and pop back up with a fish in their beak.  It was great sport to watch and try to photograph. 

 

Since we had a late dinner appointment in the Pinnacle Grill, we attended the 7pm show featuring a collaboration between the One Step Dance Company, the artists from Billboard onboard, and the female vocalist from the BBKing.  The show was titled, Off the Charts.  The billboard artists played dual pianos and sang wile the dancers interpreted the songs.  The BBKing singer did a powerful tribute to Whitney Houston.  The whole performance was excellent!

 

I got ahead of my myself.  We went to the Pinnacle for dinner expecting to have blackened ahi that Pinnacle chef Steven mentioned would be available that night.  Unfortunately it wasn't, so we ordered regular items off the menu.  During dinner chef Steve passed through the dining room and we motioned him over and expressed our disappointment.  He explained that it was an item in the Main dining room tonight, and apologized for the misunderstanding.  We continued on with our dinner when suddenly he appeared with blackened ahi for us.  Talk about building loyalty.  He sure did it for us.

 

Tomorrow we are in Cabo San Lucas with an exciting adventure.  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