Today was a sea day due to the hurricane in the Bahamas, Hurricane Joaquin. This had originally been scheduled as a visit to the Princess Cruise Lines Private Island, Princess Cays. The sea day was a much better alternative in our opinion, we are not big fans of visiting Princess Cays. It is not that great of an island or beach, but I suppose for folks who do not get the opportunity to visit many warm weather beaches, it is a treat.
The skies were mostly cloudy when we awoke this morning, but the wind was blowing about 30 mph according to the ship’s weather report on the TV. All due to being near Hurricane Joaquin Luckily, the wind was blowing almost directly from the stern of the ship, so the relative wind on the decks was almost non existent. Had we been going in the opposite direction, it would have been an entirely different situation, we would have had winds of around 45 mph or greater out on deck.
The ship was not really rocking that much either since we were going with the waves. The Captain made an announcement about the weather at around 9:00 AM, and informed us we would see the worst of the conditions later this evening as we got closer to the hurricane. The ship was heading through what the Captain called the Old Bahama Channel, which is apparently a main shipping channel just north of the island of Cuba. This was not the normal cruise ship route from Ft. Lauderdale to St. Thomas, our next port of call, especially when the ship normally visits Princess Cays first, which is in the eastern Bahamas, and requires a more easterly course.
We ended up seeing a lot of ships pass us during the day, including a couple of cruise ships heading in the opposite direction, apparently also avoiding the worst of the hurricane.
We looked at the plot of our course on the cabin TV and we were really hugging the coast of Cuba, approximately 15 miles away according to the noon ship’s position report, which seemed closer than we normally sail from land.
After lunch, the sun actually came out and we were able to sit out in the sun on the pool deck, having to relocate a few time as brief, but heavy rain showers passed by. Late in the afternoon, the rain cleared away, and it was mostly sunny until near sunset.
We enjoyed a couple of home made VO & Canada Dry Ginger Ale drinks in our Yeti Cups, which were great to use because of their size and their ability to keep ice from melting too quickly in the hot sun. We had brought the Yeti cups specifically for the second cruise, knowing we would be supplying our own “refreshments”.
Later in the day, we witnessed a small bird crashing into some of the glass on one of the upper decks, and the bird came falling to the deck, not far away. Stephanie went over to see if it was OK, and one of the Deck Attendants got a box to put it in while it recovered from being stunned. It did not appear to be severely injured since it was able to get up, but it was obviously stunned. Apparently, when this happens, the environmental officer on the ship gets involved because of the possible spread of illness by birds from one area to another. The crewman indicated they would keep the bird overnight, and try and release it in the morning, but were not allowed to keep it longer, or to give it anything other than water. Hopefully, it survived.
We went back to the cabin and got ready for dinner. We were not sure if we would go to the dining room or to the buffet, we had not yet viewed the menu for the dining room.
First though, we went to the Vines Wine Bar and had some of one of our bottles of Sangioveso Silverado Wine that we had purchased on the previous cruise. We had a couple of glasses before watching a special martini show featuring a couple of our favorite bartenders from the Seaview Bar, Rommel and Jorge. Stephanie was able to get one of the free martini’s from Jorge.
After the show we headed to dinner, which ended up being in the buffet after we consulted the dining room menu and not seeing anything of particular interest.
After dinner, we returned to Vines to finish our bottle of wine, and have a couple of desserts from the International Cafe. We visited with our bartenders, Russell and Ronnie, which we enjoy taking to.
We went back to the room to consult the Princess Patter and look at the ocean from our balcony. We decided to get a glass of our wine stock from the room and head back out to look around some of the shops in the Atrium, and then go to the comedy show at 10:30 PM in the Princess Theater. We ran into the jewelry sales person for the Sophia Fiori at the jewelry shop, Jerry, and finally got to meet his wife, Carolina, from Mexico. We talked with them for a while, they are really fun, and are much easier to talk with since they are independent contractors, and do not work for Princess.
We went to the comedy show which featured Cary Long, and it was pretty good. That ended around 11:15 PM and we headed back to the cabin to sit out on the balcony and watch far off lightning from a thunderstorm. It was peaceful to listen to the waves crashing against the bow of the ship.
At about midnight, we retired for the evening.
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