Friday 04 November - at sea. We left port last night at ten minutes past six. There are medium swells with light rain. It is cloudy, breezy, and the temperature is mid 60s. We are sailing today from the port in Barcelona, Spain in a north eastern direction toward the strait between Corsica and Nice. Then, in the early morning the ship will turn about one hundred ten degrees to the right to the port of Civitavecchia, Italy.
Darlene was up early this morning and did 18 laps on the “jogging track” – on the 12th deck, a 1/6 mile track; so she did 3 miles before I was up for breakfast.
1100 – We had a Meet and Mingle meeting in the Starquest Disco on deck 13 (the highest deck on the ship) for a Cruise Critic gathering. Cruise Critic is an online forum for people (kind of like a “Facebook get together”) who go on cruises. This Meet and Mingle was the first one for me (and Darlene), but apparently seasoned cruisers use the forum frequently to talk about upcoming tours, find people they’ve cruised with before, etc. We were able to meet with a few of the people we’ll be on two tours together. We also made arrangements for a special dinner together.
Because today is a sea day, I am able to get some writing done. YEA! I was able to write two more chapters on my Sydney novel, and Darlene was able to do some more reading (something she really cherishes).
Tonight was the first formal night on the cruise; I think we will have two more. We had dinner with John and Sharon Eash, and with a nice couple from the UK. We had changed our dinner reservation to 6 PM because there was a captain reception that we wanted to attend. We went to the party area after dinner (the Schooner Bar) after dinner, but the Captain wasn’t there. He was on the bridge – the seas were quite rough; 4 meter swells (12 feet); 80 mph winds; outside decks closed. He announced that it was going to be a “slightly rough” evening, but that his First Officer was in charge of finding better weather.
The captain finally appeared at his reception, he introduced his staff, and there was plenty of champagne for everyone – compliments of the captain! People were staggering all over, and quite honestly, it wasn’t due to the free champagne. The ship was really moving from one side to the other. One of the interesting items in the Schooner Bar is a Gyro Pool table that manages to keep its surface perfectly level through a computer. That way you can’t us the excuse that the ship rolled this way or that way and that our ball was headed straight for the pocket.
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