Sunday – Tuesday, September 20 – 22 - At Sea



Over the course of these few days, we’ve continued to sail west, setting our clocks back an hour each night. We’ve passed several of the Aleutians, but could not see them. The sea is now much calmer than it was, and the wind is less fierce. However, the sky is cloudy and the ocean is grey. There’s a layer of salt on the balcony chairs and railing and the temperature is a chilly 10 C. We haven’t spent much time out there, but we do keep watching for whales or other sea life. Nothing but some birds so far. There’s lots to entertain us, though, to say nothing of a continuous supply of food and drink.


We continue to participate in afternoon trivia, slipping now to third place in a field of 11 teams (that’s 88 people out of 250 passengers!). We have a new strategy, and are determined to climb up in the standings. [Later note: Our strategy worked well, but not well enough – we’re still in third place.] I’ve been playing bingo, too, but not winning much there either. Line dancing is great fun on a rolling ship, and it provides a way to burn a few of the excess calories. We’ve gone to a couple of lectures about famous musical talents. Today was Gene Kelly. Very interesting. And we’ve also learned about the next few ports of call. Every night there is excellent musical or other entertainment. Tonight we cross the date line, so there will be no Wednesday for us this week. Larry has a cold, and wasn’t feeling up to the dining room. He had lunch in our suite, alone, and I joined him there for dinner. It was very nice to have it all brought to us by our attentive butler, Ricardo. Tonight there’s a cocktail reception and formal dinner, so we’ll get gussied up in a while and head out for that. In fact, Larry has bought a fancy new Armani shirt for it. This morning, a passenger had an apparent stroke during the lecture, so now we’re moving as quickly as possible toward Petropavlovsk to get him to a hospital. We’re now scheduled to arrive there at 6:30 tomorrow afternoon. That also means a 2-hour set-back of our clocks tonight.
Link to Photos of this period