Third sea day today on the way to Aqaba. It’s still hot, too
hot for me to sit in for more than a few minutes, but lovely just the same. Sea days make us really aware of any subtle
changes in speed, sky, wind and sea state, and put us into a reflective mode.
Anyone remember Hugh Grant’s role in “Just a Boy” – the rich
son who inherited the royalties of a Christmas song his father wrote? Well I was thinking about his “units of time”
(30 minutes=1 unit) and realising that’s what we do with our sea days. Apart from the moments of reflection, which I
would give one unit, we read our Horizon and ship’s newspaper (one unit) and
plan our activities. Since the sector
started we spend 2 units each just selecting and enjoying breakfast and lunch,
3 dinner, 3 in the gym, 3-4 water colour painting, 1-2 doing crosswords, 1 writing
the blog, then there’s unpredictable activities like chatting with fellow
passengers (therefore falling outside of unitary measures), 2 in the Palladium,
sometimes 2 in the dance classes, and sometimes 2 listening to port talks and
of course, after dinner and the Palladium, watching television. We spend at
least 10 units asleep, but I don’t think Hugh Grant referred to sleeping!
How far have we travelled so far? Today it is 31,500
nautical miles since Southampton. We
noticed the ship’s speed had picked up to 24 nautical miles per hour, which
doesn’t sound very fast, but as our captain once told us the maximum speed we’d
be doing was 21, we wondered if it was to make sure we got through the
straights at the bottom of the Red Sea and cleared troubled Yemen’s coast as
quickly as possible. The sea around us
is deserted by the way, not a sign of any activity to concern anyone.
Today was the day of the second world cruisers’ lunch or (should
I say luncheon to give a feel?) We dressed up for this one. Drinks flowed
freely, so there was lots of loose talk at the dinner table. There was good news and bad news on our
table. Remember Victoria I mentioned
yesterday? Luckily for us she was
hosting our table again and was like a breath of fresh air, young, vibrant,
cheerful, full of interesting tales from the oceans and very open and honest
when we asked questions. She was happy
to have her photo taken as one of our blog stars.
The food was absolutely delicious: interestingly organised mozzarella starter, halibut in a lobster bisque sauce for main, a very extravagant desert with so many different flavours (citrus, caramel, butterscotch and choc) and a few artistic paintings in chocolate on the plate. Khachik enjoyed the red wine, passed on the champagne and I loved the iced orange juices. So far so good. The bad news? There were two other couples at the table and one of one couple seemed really attention seeking at any cost. I’m ok with attention seeking, I’ve done enough of that myself! It’s the “at any cost” I struggle with. There was obnoxious, ignorant, rudeness to the waiters and our table host, loud complaining about the food, the wine, the ship, the service, the cruise etc etc. Bearing in mind firstly that this lunch with drinks was invitation only and complimentary and secondly we had a beautiful person hosting our table who definitely didn’t deserve to have her lunch ruined. Now the worst news: he was publicly, blatantly, directly racist towards our waiters. Strange how we’d never seen him before on the ship, if we had we would be giving him a very wide berth, and funny we should be brought together for such a special meal. As we left the dining room I felt a sense of good riddance to that man. Resolved to make sure the waiters know that we do not feel like that, nor is our experience worthy of any complaint.
The food was absolutely delicious: interestingly organised mozzarella starter, halibut in a lobster bisque sauce for main, a very extravagant desert with so many different flavours (citrus, caramel, butterscotch and choc) and a few artistic paintings in chocolate on the plate. Khachik enjoyed the red wine, passed on the champagne and I loved the iced orange juices. So far so good. The bad news? There were two other couples at the table and one of one couple seemed really attention seeking at any cost. I’m ok with attention seeking, I’ve done enough of that myself! It’s the “at any cost” I struggle with. There was obnoxious, ignorant, rudeness to the waiters and our table host, loud complaining about the food, the wine, the ship, the service, the cruise etc etc. Bearing in mind firstly that this lunch with drinks was invitation only and complimentary and secondly we had a beautiful person hosting our table who definitely didn’t deserve to have her lunch ruined. Now the worst news: he was publicly, blatantly, directly racist towards our waiters. Strange how we’d never seen him before on the ship, if we had we would be giving him a very wide berth, and funny we should be brought together for such a special meal. As we left the dining room I felt a sense of good riddance to that man. Resolved to make sure the waiters know that we do not feel like that, nor is our experience worthy of any complaint.
The rest of our day went well. Art – we produced a watercolour copy of one
of Easa’s oil paintings. It was a King Charles
spaniel. We both gave it our best shot and Khachik’s is lovely. I am honestly very happy with the eyes on
mine. Afterwards we had coffee with Easa
and he suggested I try to soften the hair a bit, so that’s what I did before
dinner. J Neither looks like Easa’s though.
After dinner we enjoyed a performance by a young opera singer, Victor, who enjoyed audience participation in all of his choruses, all of them Italian favourites. Most we recognised, as he chose things like O Sole Mio, the theme from the Godfather. He was very good, and the participation was actually great fun too!
After dinner we enjoyed a performance by a young opera singer, Victor, who enjoyed audience participation in all of his choruses, all of them Italian favourites. Most we recognised, as he chose things like O Sole Mio, the theme from the Godfather. He was very good, and the participation was actually great fun too!
Did I mention launderette rage? There are three launderettes for all passengers. Open 8 a.m. and close 10 p.m so it is an art
form to avoid queues, or if you’re really unlucky a rager in the room. We have been at the wrong end of a rager’s
tongue for being in there just before 8 a.m. ;) Anyway, one way of avoiding
laundry-conflict because nobody washes at night so you wash at dinner time and
dry after the Palladium before 10p.m. and pick it up dry in the morning. You
might think launderette talk is not the stuff of a cruise blog, and you may
well be right, but firstly it’s one unit of sea-day time ;) Secondly launderette rage is what cruise
legends are made of, and besides I would like a good excuse to repeat two bits
of launderette gossip to give you a real feel for the more pressing issues
around laundry…. We heard that early on
in this cruise two passengers were expelled from the ship for fighting over a
washing machine on behalf of their partners.
Later we heard that someone else had put a Mars bar inside one of the
dryers after an argument over who was first in the queue. No expulsion, but damages charged! There you
have it, insight indeed into the issues facing some very troubled passengers on
the Arcadia – I reckon yoga and meditation might be the answer ;)
I was just building up there to say that last night we did our laundry
one more time, without incident, and we calculate that this clever navigation
around a potentially hazardous process need only be repeated twice more. Another
stark reminder of the end of the cruise being almost here. 13 days in fact.
So I will say bye for now from inside of the Red Sea. Back
tomorrow. xx
