Sea Day 2 of 2 Happy April Fool’s Day

Good morning from the ship that according to Daily Program is “Lost at Sea”. LOL! I woke up first this morning and I let Megan sleep in. We set our clocks ahead an hour last night so even though the clock says it’s later. we don’t feel like it. This was our first bump ahead in time this trip and we decided we like turning it back WAY better. I went and had my breakfast at the Pinnacle Grill where I am happy to announce, that we can resume serving ourselves again. No more waiting in lines for tea and water and the serving ware has returned to the Lido Buffet. Which means the majority of the passengers have returned to good health and we can look forward to receiving fresh supplies tomorrow. Ian the cruise director made an April Fool’s day announcement this morning referencing a ship from many era’s gone by and discussing what primitive activities they would have had available to them. It made a good laugh. Megan and I headed to project Linus and discovered the daily carpets in the elevators are not accurate this morning. They are each representing different days of the week. There are also statues around the ship that are currently in “disguise” for the day. It is lighthearted play on this holiday on the ship. I had acupuncture this afternoon and Megan went and played basketball again. This evening we had our third block party. We had the chance to walk all around the 7th floor and meet with neighbors as staff members came around filling our wine glasses and passing appetizers. One of our friend have an aft corner cabin and they were kind enough to show us their ginormous balcony. I swear you could have a regulation size corn hole court in the “alley” that runs down the side of the ship. It was nice to see the different room configuration. We spent part of the evening in the Neptune Lounge where one of the passengers was playing his guitar and providing us with live music. The Captain came by for a visit and we our first opportunity to talk to him 1:1. He was impressed with Megan’s world travel experience and her commitment to her schooling. We realized he was the captain on the Zuiderdam when we were on last July as well when we were “trying her on” before the world cruise. This evening we went the Pinnacle Grill for the April Fool’s Day Jellicle Dinner. We joined Gail and Marty for this humorous and memorable experience. Food didn’t look like it should have, we weren’t told what we were eating till after we ate it and it was absolutely delicious. It was a 6 course meal that lasted 3.5 hours and wine was included. So basically, I started drinking around 4pm and didn’t stop till almost 9:30pm. DJ Nyron was rocking the Crow’s Nest tonight so we headed straight there after dinner. They held a costume contest for the passengers and the crew and lots of people had fun dressing up. We danced the night away and closed down the festivities in the Crow’s Nest and then moved down to the Rolling Stone Lounge and continued dancing there until the music stopped around 11:45pm. It was a VERY late evening, especially for me and I fear I am going to dread that early morning alarm tomorrow. We meet our excursion group at 8:45am. We are excited to be coming into a new port and a new country for me. But you will have to wait to read about that until tomorrow. Hope you all had a wonderful April Fool’s Day. I pray any practical jokes played on you or that you performed where light hearted, harmless and receive well. Enjoy the photos from this evenings dinner!!

Sea Day 1 of 2

Good morning on this last day of March in 2023!! It’s a Sea Day on the MS Zuiderdam another day to enjoy the routines of life on the ship. We got up this morning and decided to skip breakfast as we have a lunch date in the Pinnacle later today. So I didn’t head out until it was time to go to Project Linus around 9:30 am. Megan stayed behind to work on some school work and showed up a bit later after she had completed her work. We enjoyed chatting with everyone and hearing about their last port excursions and see the progress on their blankets. I turned in another completed blanket this morning and and am chugging away on my next one already. One of the passengers who had to leave the ship due to medical reasons recently, left two incomplete blankets and one passenger took one to finish and Megan took the second. It is 81 tiny squares, 9X9, and they need to be sewn together. It is a Sudoku themed blankets so Megan has to “solve” the blanket before she gets to put it together. Cute idea, but lots of little squares to attached to each other. After project Linus Megan and I had lunch with Gail in Marty. Our first lunch ever in the Pinnacle Grill. We had heard wonderful things about the trip-tip sandwich and we all ordered it and it was delicious. It was a nice change to our regular routine. After Lunch Megan went off to play basketball up on the sports court and I went to acupuncture. The hip is feeling better and at this point I am suspecting all my new aches and pains may be caused from the mattress on our bed. Having NEVER had these issues before, that is definitely one thing that is different about my day to day life in the last few months. Fingers crossed and prayers these are temporary. After acupuncture I headed home to get a jump on some presale tickets on Ticketmaster. With the unreliable wifi we have been experiencing it was quite a nightmare. I was in the waiting room, then made it to the queue, and then when it was my turn to make a purchase the system crashed. I had to choose my tickets multiple times, fought with the credit card authorization and had to try about 10 times over the course of an hour before I was successful in purchasing my tickets. I will appreciated the concert more since I had to work so hard to obtain them right?!? LOL. During this time I was in and out of the Main dining room. Megan was sweet enough to order my dinner for me and she spent a chunk of time hanging out in there solo. After dinner we attended an invitation event at the Retreat outside on the 11th floor. Holland America hosted an “Out of Africa” party for some of the guests. Complete with hosted cocktail and appetizers and music by DJ Nyron again. It was so much fun. It was supposed to go till 7:30pm, but some of us (wink wink), stayed until about 8:30pm dancing and enjoying the evening. It was EXTREMELY windy last night and the wind was filled with sand from the Sahara Desert. It looked like there was fog in the air, but we were informed it was actually small particles of sand from miles away. After the party I headed home and Megan stayed out till abut 10:00pm. When she got home she had a craving for ice cream and she waited till 10:30pm for the late night buffet, no luck, and then came back and called room service to be told that the freezers were locked for the night. Morale to the story, make sure you order ice cream before the freezers are locked….it must be a hot commodity that they feel the need to lock it up. It was a great day at Sea today. Memories were made, there was laughter, and we did something good for others. A win in my book. Tomorrow is April Fool’s day and another sea day. I hope you are all ready for an amazing weekend wherever you are. Make some memories of your own!!

Dakar, Senegal

The port visit that was not to be.

We were up early this morning to meet with at 7:45am for our excursion today.  Megan and I were both up at 6:30am and dressed to head to breakfast in the Lido.  We filled our water bottles in anticipation of another really hot day.  We headed to the Main Stage to meet our group and awaited to be called to head off the ship and load our bus…and we waited…and we waited.  At this time the Main Stage was filled with those of us waiting for the 7:45am excursions as well as the 8:00am and the 8:15am groups.  And then the announcement came; due to a concern about the safety and well-being of the passengers on the ship due to current political unrest in the downtown of Dakar all excursions were cancelled, and no passenger will be allowed off the ship today.  This now became a service stop and we would only receive supplies and then we would move on.  We checked the news and discovered that here yesterday there were riots and protesting that resulted in the use of police force and tear gas.  More of the same was anticipate for today.  I put some faith in the captain and Holland America whenever I step on a ship. That they are monitoring these things and making decisions that ultimately put our safety first.  Some of the passengers were not happy with the decision, but we see it as an anticipated deviation in our itinerary and it was completely for the right reasons.  So we walked the outside decks and took several pictures as this is the closest we will be to Senegal.  We decided it counts as us having been here, especially since we wound up being at the pier all day. We spent the morning getting our laundry sent out and then we went and sat with the ladies who showed up at the Project Linus meeting place.  It wasn’t all set up like most sea days, Marty decided the crew was so busy doing other things we didn’t need all the supplies brought down from where they are stored since it wasn’t on the regular schedule to do today anyway.  The ship added a few additional activities and printed up and distributed a modified Daily Program as well.  Throughout the day Megan and I watched them offload a huge cargo ship using large cranes to lower containers down to the pier and then huge machines picked them up and stacked them like Legos.  We also watched them drive a fleet of new vehicles into the barge for transport to somewhere new.  It was a busy port for sure.  As the day progressed we know of at least three passengers who were sadly transported by ambulance to a local hospital from the ship for unknown to us health reasons.  I pray they are safe and that they are receiving exceptional care here.  Megan and I spent the afternoon relaxing and swimming at the pool.  I read my book in the sun and Megan took hers to the shade.  By the time it rolled around to getting ready for dinner, we decided we weren’t ready to leave the pool yet and opted to eat at a later time and at the buffet this evening.  We wound up eating around 6:30pm after we had showered and put on our comfy clothes.   During dinner we received an announcement from the captain informing us that due to the political unrest that our supply containers were not cleared and could not be loaded today afterall.  We were informed that additional orders were being placed for future ports and that they were hoping to get the containers from here to another port later in our journey.  We were told to expect a decrease in the variety of things available to us during this time and that further supplies would be obtained soon.  His closing line was to tell us that we were in luck, because we have not run out of wine or toilet paper.  I am happy that we are leaving port before sunset.  I was getting nervous about being here after dark.  After dinner we took a walk to the back of the ship and got a few beautiful sunset photos as the sun set into the fog on Senegal behind.  We said goodbye to this port and to the adventures that were not to be on this trip around the world.  We headed back to the cabin and I started my next project Linus blanket and Megan went off to play cards with Gail and Marty, Robin, Tom, Barbara and Sherry.  They had a big group tonight.  Megan is enjoying getting to know new people and I am trying to give her time to be independent in the evenings as well.  Tomorrow we have a sea day, we actually have two coming up.  We set sail now to the Canary Islands for a couple of ports there. Despite what happened today we made a memory.  And we will remember our visit here regardless.  Blessings and hugs to you all! 

Banjul, Gambia

Hello from the tiniest country in the continent of Africa. A tiny country tucked in between the country of Senegal with a very large river running right down the middle of it. Todays excursion got bumped from a morning excursion to a noon time meet up so we opted to take a relaxing morning. I got up around 8:00am and went to the Neptune Lounge for breakfast and to do some work on my computer. I came home about 9:30am and got Megan up for the day. She also grabbed breakfast in the Neptune Lounge because we’ll be off the ship all afternoon and I wanted her to get some food in her stomach before we headed out. We spent the rest of the morning tidying around the “house” and getting saturated in bug repellant and sun screen for Megan. We met with the group from Cruise Specialist at the Rolling Stone Lounge at 12:00pm. A local police officer was on our bus all day today escorting us to all our destinations. He was the first one off the bus and the last one on. I felt a peace having him there, knowing he was there to keep a watch over us. We headed out around 12:30 for our exploration around Banjul and the neighboring communities. Our first stop was the National Museum that depicts the history of Gambia. They had a 21 string guitar there that is indigenous to Gambia and we googled a video of someone playing it. A neat look if you get a chance. Our second stop was at Arch 22 which is a gateway to the Gambian capitol. Next, we visited the Katchikally Crocodile Pool. This is one of three sacred crocodile pools used as sites for fertility rituals. We actually got to get up close and personal with the crocodiles, I kinda can’t believe I did that…enjoy the photos!! Our next stop was a monkey sanctuary and our tour guide was kind enough to bring along a bag of peanuts so we could feed them. Just as we were getting ready to head back to the bus a monkey jumped onto my back and perched on my shoulder to enjoy his snack. It was definitely the highlight of my day. Next, we visit a tie die and batik factory. Megan was given the opportunity to try her hand at doing some batik work. A new craft project for her when we get home?!? Lastly, we stopped at a local restaurant where we had ten minutes for a snack and a cold drink, I went for a beer and Megan a coke. Along the drive there were sights to see. Colorfully dressed locals, goats and cows wandering around like pets, vendors selling all kinds of items from everywhere and anywhere they could set up a table. We again saw such poverty and horrible living conditions. But here in Gambia everywhere we went people smiled at us and waved. Especially all the children we saw today. Megan and I made faces back and forth with them from the bus when we were at stops and we all laughed! It was pure, and it was joyful. We got to touch these little ones lives and had our lives touched right back just through a smile. It was beautiful!! Today was the craziest and busiest excursion we have had. Originally booked for a morning tour, but I am sure it was modified by the tour operator, it didn’t start till 12:30pm. It was supposed to be a 5.25 hour excursion and they crammed almost everything we were supposed to do into a shorter time frame and it felt like it. We only had 5-20 minutes at each of our stops and it was a lot of rushing on and off the bus. Not my favorite thing to do. All aboard was 4:30pm and we didn’t make it. We arrived back to the pier around 5:15 only to discover there were three other excursion groups that had yet to arrive back either. Megan and I rushed back to the cabin, changed quickly for dinner and then went out to 3rd floor deck to watch them take up all the lines from the ship and pull up the gangway after the last passengers arrived back on board. Then, we went to dinner at the main dining room. It was almost 6:00pm at this time we thought for sure they would have given away our table by then, but they had not. So we got to sit at our regular table with Umam and Regy. We have reserved seating at 5:00pm at the same table every night. But they only guarantee they will save your table for you till 5:15pm. There is also a late night seating at 7:30pm every night, again where people come in and sit at the same table with the same servers every night. Lastly, there is open seating for guest who don’t want a set time and they can come in the dining room anytime between 5:00pm and 8:00pm. They get sat at different tables, sometimes with other passengers and with different servers every night. That is not our preference and I love being done early with dinner. But, everyone has their own preference. Something to consider when you cruise. Again I have lots of photos from today. Enjoy thumbing through them all and experiencing little bit of Gambia. It is my absolute pleasure to be able to share it with you. Love and Hugs, Debra

Sea Day 2 of 2

Good morning all!! Happy Tuesday from the Atlantic Ocean. We are sailing in a North Westerly course heading to our next port of Gambia. I woke up this morning and it was still dark outside A week ago the sunrise was at 6:00am and now it is closer to 7:00am. I went to the gym and started my morning off with some exercise and watched the sun rise there. It is a foggy morning and there isn’t much visibility today. I came home and woke up Megan and we headed to the Pinnacle Grill for breakfast. We were feeling saucy and tried the breakfast specials this morning. Cheese blintzes and Uitsmijter; a Dutch ham and cheese breakfast sandwich. They made it with Gouda cheese and it was delicious. I usually have a vegetarian omelet so it was a nice change. After breakfast we went to out Project Linus time. I turned in my most recently completed blanket. I forgot to take a photo, I will have to get one on our next sea day. We spend a couple of hours just spending time with friends, catching up on the gossip, and crocheting away the morning. After crochet time Megan and I hug out until she had tutoring at 12:30pm and I had acupuncture at 1:00pm. I have a hip/sciatic nerve that has been bothering me, I suspect from walking and holding my body differently when my back was injured, and he treated that area for me today. Megan and I met back up at 2:00pm at the Neptune Lounge and spent the afternoon laughing and eating potato chips and playing games. Two rounds of Sorry and a part way played game of Monopoly. Sadly before we knew it, it was 4:30pm and we had to stop playing to get ready for dinner. So we wrote down everything we each owned so we could resume the game at a later date. We are actually about equal in our assets and I think we should just call it a tie, but we’ll see how Megan feels about that later. LOL!! We had dinner in the Main Dining room at 5:00pm and had our friend Ginny and her new friend Jeanette join us this evening at our table. They are both solo travelers and have struck up a friendship during this world cruise. They have planned a couple of future cruises together and it is sweet watching a new friendship blossom between these two 80 something year olds. After dinner we headed home and I snuggled in with my crochet project, I’m almost done with this one. Megan went to the Lido to play Mahjong with a group of ladies that play there every evening. I turned on Food Network for background noise, it’s very quiet in the cabin without having Megan there. Tomorrow we have a later excursion, not till noon, so I suspect a relaxing morning before heading off the ship to brave another hot an humid port. below I am attaching pictures of our towel bunny that greeted us when we got home last night and an interesting map of Africa that shows some perspective of how big it really is. I never realized how massive the continent truly is. Sending you all love and hugs from about 7,000 miles away.

Sea Day 1 of 2

It’s another warm sea day out here in the middle of the ocean. The humidity has definitely been something we have had to get used to. I know I shouldn’t complain at all with all the weird, cold and wet weather everyone is having at home. But it is sticky and hot. We started our morning at the Pinnacle Grill for breakfast this morning. We have had to make a few adjustments to our diets as of late. There is a limit amount of fresh fruit and produce on the ship and we are not anticipating another restocking until April 2nd. With the questionable gastrointestinal illness that overcame many passengers on the ship they are limiting what supplies we currently receive under an abundance of caution. I am o.k. with making a few changes and hope the passenger are as understanding as we are. The number of ill passengers is decreasing according the captain’s mid day report today. Hoping to see it fully resolved and everyone healthy again soon. After breakfast we ventured to our Project Linus crocheting time. Loving my time in the sunny window to relax and just work on my next blanket. After Linus time I spent some time catching up on my blog from the last couple of days. Megan had tutoring at 12:30pm. At 2:00pm I had acupuncture and Megan came and got to see what my treatment looks like. Dr.Kim was wonderful at giving Megan an overview of the beliefs behind and the benefits of acupuncture. He explained a little bit about the philosophy of eastern medicine and how the energy flows through the human body. I am glad Megan showed some interest and the Dr. Kim was was so very kind to her. After my treatment I headed back to the Ocean bar..where we have project Linus, and I got to visit with Gail and Marty for a bit. There is a group of crocheters that meet there again in the afternoon and work on their blankets. Around 4:30pm we headed home to put away laundry and to get ready for dinner. Tonight was a dressy night and Megan and I went to the Pinnacle Grill for dinner at the ship’s steakhouse. After dinner I came home and Megan went back to out to play cards with Gail and Marty. I am wearing my little black dress and writing my blog to you all. It’s like we are all having a date. Cheers to you all wherever you are in the world today. We have 45 days left in this journey at sea. We have many adventures yet to share together. I am looking forward to sharing them all with you and then I am really looking forward to being back at home with my loved ones!! I miss hugs and kisses and just being together. Gosh do I miss driving a car too! Isn’t it funny how early on I missed cooking..I’m learning to be o.k. with that one…but I really miss the control of being behind a wheel of a car. I don’t miss doing laundry or making my bed at all. LOL!! The only thing that would make this trip even better would be if each of my loved ones were here with me in the cabins all the way down the hallway. We could share adventures together and separately and get together and share meals together at the end of each day. It’s a pleasant fantasy and I will dwell on that happy thought as I cuddle into bed tonight. You are all here with me in my heart and I take you along with me on every adventure. Love and Hugs, Debra

Abidjan, Ivory Coast (CoteD’Ivoire)

Hello from the Ivory Coast. I awoke to smell of smoke again this morning. Something about the ports throughout the African coast that, that is the over whelming smell I awake too. We were up this morning doing all our precautionary preparation before stepping off the ship. We remove all our jewelry, make sure we are wearing inconspicuous clothing, limit the amount of valuables we take with us and make sure we have plenty of drinking water because it is extremely hot and humid. Megan has also been wearing a baseball cap lately so she can hide her face when they start taking our photos, which happened today in spades especially for her. We grabbed our breakfast from the Lido this morning, filled our water bottle and then headed to meet our excursion group at the main stage by 8:45am. Today we drove through Abidjan and visited several of their 10 providences. 8 of which share a border with what we would call a river, they call a lagoon. We saw poverty at a level we have now seen several times throughout Africa. But despite people having so little, we always see smiling faces, and today everyone was dressed in their Sunday best as many people go to church and still give thanks for what they have. It is a reminder of how blessed we are. Our first stop was at a boys orphanage in Bingerville. There are 188 boys housed here currently between the ages of 5 and 23. They live in dorm style rooms. The location where the orphanage is, used to be the Governors Home before the capitol was moved in 1972. The building still stands and has been modified to accommodate the orphanage. Even the former prison building was renovated and now houses the mess hall where the students eat. A group of the boys performed a welcome dance for us and really seemed to enjoy themselves. Megan had MANY photos taken of her today. These young boys were super excited to see a young white girl amount the group and followed her around taking her photo the whole time we were there. The orphanage was presented a check from us as I assume part of our excursion costs went back to the day to day operations of the orphanage. I wanted to bring them all home with me and love on them and take care of them. It makes me sad to think of their life situation that has brought them to live here. They have either lost both of their parents, have only one parent who is unable to care for them, or have parent (s) who are incarcerated. Children ages 0-4years are in a different facility and come to live here at age 5. At age 23 they are old enough to go off to university and can no longer live here anymore. After we left the Orphanage we actually drove right next door to Bingerville Botanical Gardens. We were given a guided tour by the Botanical garden director and you could see the pride he has in taking care of these gardens. They actually used to be the private gardens to the Governor, who’s house is now the orphanage next door. We got to see many different local plants and trees. The highlights of the gardens was the blooming flowers, a Fromager Tree that we got to walk through, a bamboo covered walk way, cashew tress, Cacao trees and a second walk way filled with 100+ year old mango tress which still produce fruit the this day. Although I have no idea how you would harvest the fruit that high up. We walked quite a bit at the botanical gardens and it was extremely hot. I drank three bottles of water while we were there and it still didn’t feel like enough. After we left the botanical gardens and happily got back into our air-conditioned bus, we drove to Le Jardin D’Eden restaurant for a lovely lunch. We took all necessary precautions there, not eating any uncooked fruits or vegetables, and enjoyed our lunch very much. We even went back for seconds of cooked chicken and fish. I had a nice cold Guiness and a Castle beer (the beer we had on our safari) and more water and Megan tried a tropical soda. On the way back to the ship we drove through the downtown area of Abidjan and saw the local vendors selling their wares. There are a lot of colorful photos I took today and I hope you enjoy looking through them. I was fascinated by the way they carry large parcels on their heads and make it look so easy. Some of our driving highlights from today was St. Paul’s Cathedral, the U.S. embassy, a ton of fruit bats, the soccer stadium, and the Banque d’Abidjan. When we retuned to the ship we decide a cool shower was in order and we both needed to rehydrate. We both wound up with headaches and some gatorade was exactly what the doctor ordered. We stayed in for the rest of the evening. I ordered tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich from room service and Megan, who wasn’t hungry until my food arrived, wound up ordering the same for herself as well. It was a relaxing evening and we watched a fabulous movie about the life of Helen Reddy called I Am Woman, after her number one hit from the 1970’s. She was a woman’s activist and gave women a voice and the anthem to the women’s movement. It was a great watch. I love these educational biopics they have available for us to watch. I feel like I am learning and being entertained at the same time, guilt free movie watching, LOL!! I am hoping for a long nights sleep and to wake up feeling back to myself again. Tomorrow is a sea day and we have our daily routines ready to go. Enjoy your evening, morning or whatever time it is where you are. Hugs!

Takoradi, Ghana

Hello from Ghana! Today is the day we had our excursion canceled so we woke up with zero plans for today which is rare for us for a port day. We went to the Pinnacle Grill for breakfast and while we were there the cruise Director Ian announced there would be a market set up on the pier right outside the ship. So we decided to go ashore. We stepped off the ship and instantly had locals taking our photo. We purchased our traditional magnet and keychain. We also purchased a grass woven black and white “plate” it was pretty and I decided I needed it. We spend all of maybe 30 minutes off the ship but we can say we were in Ghana and I never felt unsafe being so close to home the entire time. We hopped back on the ship and proceeded to catch up on some school and work stuff. It’s the first time we have had T-Mobile service in a while and there are some websites that I can not access through the ship’s wifi so it was nice to get a few things off my to do list. The ship had crew drills today which means they sounded the alarms several times and its really loud, but I understand it is a necessity to keep us safe when there is actual emergency. We spent a bit of time organizing all of Megan’s completed school work and starting the process of getting things together and ready for submission upon our return to the states. We have piles of completed science, history, math, reading worksheets, literature pages, lecture notes and excursion notes.Everything has be collated chronologically and is organized!! Megan is a rock star and I am so proud of her initiative to work hard on her schoolwork. As we look ahead to the remainder of the cruise we have A LOT of port days ahead. I was happy to get a big jump on this project while we had the time. I went to the gym this afternoon and pushed myself for a new record. 6 miles on the elliptical in just over 60 minutes. I already feel it but it’s a good discomfort. No pain no gain right? We went to the dining room for dinner this evening. I was super happy to see Peruvian chicken on the menu, I hadn’t had it in a while. After dinner we went to the Main Stage for a showing of a World View Film called “Mia and the White Lion”. We enjoyed the movie very much and I can not believe I stayed up so late after being up since 2am this morning. It was a rough night for some reason last night and I can not wait for my head to hit the pillow tonight. The attached photos were taken by fellow passengers who took the shuttle into town to visit the market there today. Tomorrow we are in port, and have an excursion. Another adventure ahead!

Sea Day 3 of 3

Good morning. Today is a big day and there is an excitement on the ship you can feel as soon as we woke up. We decided to sleep in this morning and finally headed out around 8:30 am for breakfast in the Pinnacle. After breakfast we made our way to the Lido Deck poolside for the King Neptune’s Ceremony. Time for the pollywogs (sailors who have never crossed the Equator) to go before the judge and King Neptune for his penance. “The ritual dates back at least 400 years in Western seafaring. The ceremony observes a mariner’s transformation from slimy Pollywog, a seaman who hasn’t crossed the equator, to trusty Shellback, also called a Son or Daughter of Neptune. It was a way for sailors to be tested for their seaworthiness.” There were several pollywogs in the crew on the ship and they all had to bow before the fish, be subjected to being slimed (colored meringue) and then the captain and four other officers had to make judgement if they were to be dunked in the drink (the swimming pool) or had to sit poolside in their slime. Now, to be honest, going in the pool was a punishment, but I believe having to sit with the slime all over you was a worse punishment. Cute poems stating their “crimes” against King Neptune were read and they were all humorous and the passengers enjoyed them immensely. About half the crew was made to “swim with the sharks”. It was a lot of fun to watch and to take part in. In the end all of the crew wound up in the pool. Then came the clean up…there was a white film on the top of the pool and it had to be drained and scrubbed down and that took most of the rest of the day. After the ceremony we went up to deck 10 and awaited the momentous moment for the day. We crossed the Prime Meridian and the Equator at 11:11am. At one point, different parts of the ship were all in the Eastern, Western, Northern and Southern Hemisphere all at the same time. It is not a common occurrence and it makes us all now a rare titled “Emerald Shellback”. To read more information on this unique place in the world you can look up Null Island. It was a very interesting read and something cool that will make a great trivia question someday. After the morning festivities we were hot a little overheated so headed inside to spend some time crocheting in the air conditioning even though we missed our Project Linus group this morning. Next, we decided to head to the Lido because they had a seafood buffet for lunch today. We dined on cooked cold lobster, prawns, mussels, clams and sushi. Next, it was tutoring time for Megan and an acupuncture appointment for me. We met back at the cabin around 4:00pm and made an executive decision that the dining room menu didn’t make us want to get dressed up and we were still full from lunch. So about 6:00pm we went to the lido for a light dinner. There is still no self service anywhere on the ship. I am a “do it for myself” kinda girl and it bothers me to have to ask for someone to give me a cup of hot water for tea, but unfortunately those are the rules right now so we all have to follow them. Hoping the restrictions will be lifted soon. We came home after dinner and continued to crochet for the rest of the evening. It was a fun day and I am happy to have finally had the opportunity to see my first King Neptune’s Ceremony. I am so thankful to the staff and crew for making it so entertaining. Enjoy that sunshine my California friends and family. It is long overdue!! Hugs.

Sea Day 2 of 3

Happy Palindrome Day. 32323. It is another Sea Day for us here on the MS Zuiderdam. We are starting to see some of the health restrictions lifted a little which means passengers are getting healthier and that is the best thing I can hope for. I was up early and tackled my workout at the gym. I came home and woke up Megan so we could go have breakfast together at the Pinnacle Grill. Then we went to crochet class. We enjoyed some time chatting with our friends, especially Ginny. We got a really nice personal thank you from Marty for our help yesterday but he and Gail by far deserve so many thanks for everything they do. Megan and I were super happy to have been able to do our small part. We left crochet a little early and went to the main stage to listen to todays lecture. Dr. Dean Allen presented a very interesting lecture titled, “A Man’s Game?Exploring Gender Roles.” It was an interesting history of gender roles, why they exist and where we are today in the society we live in. Megan and I both enjoyed it very much and it was a poignant educational lesson for her for today. She took a lot of notes and wrote a summary of the lecture. After the lecture I changed into my bathing suit for some sun worshiping and Megan went to see the amazing Bonita for math. Today I decided I was not going to have the retractable roof kill my sun time so I went to the aft pool deck. I had a lovely 90 minutes in the sun, reading my book and relaxing and then…all of a sudden the skies opened and there was torrential downpour. I had to quickly grab all my stuff and run for cover. So I guess the early warning system of the retractable roof isn’t always a bad thing. I headed back to my cabin for a hot shower because being inside the ship wet is not pleasant, it is always much cooler inside in the common areas. In fact most day we have a sweatshirt or sweater with us at all times. We spend the rest of our afternoon watching the rain from our cabin. I paid some bills and sent home some Easter gifts. Megan started and finished an arts and crafts project and we just enjoyed not really having anywhere to be. 5:00pm was time for dinner in the main dining room. We had a lovely meal and saw a few more passengers in our section back to the their normal seating times and routines. After dinner we headed home, got into our cozies and popped on the food network for a little tv time before bed. It was a mother wonderful day. Tomorrow is a special day aboard the ship and every is excited for the King Neptune Ceremony. It will be our first and we can not wait!! Hugs and Love to you all from across the sea.