Sea Day 8

It was another sunny day today on our last of four sea days before we arrive in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico tomorrow morning.

Since we have our darkening curtain closed to help insulate the glass door and keep it cooler in our room, we don’t really get to see when it is light outside first thing in the morning.  I looked at my watch and thought it was 7:50 AM, so I got up to get ready to head downstairs for my coffee, thinking it had been nice to sleep in.  However, once I was in more light in the bathroom, I realized it was only 6:50 AM, so I went back to sleep.

I did not really sleep that well once I had been up, so at about 7:20 AM, I was up again and got dressed to go for coffee.

The Living Room Bar was not too crowded at first, and after ordering a Latte today, with my blueberry muffin, I sat at a table next to a man on his computer.  I then realized I had forgotten my glasses and cell phone, so I headed back to the room to get them so I could actually see what I was doing on the computer.  About the time I settled back in, a lady came and sat with the man.  From their conversation, I could tell it was not his wife, I guess she was just a friend or someone he had met.  But boy was she loud, and then started talking about how she had to leave the show last night because she was coughing so much!  

Another couple sitting by her moved, and then I gathered up everything, using my laptop as a tray for my coffee, muffin and glass of water, and headed to the same area I was in but on the other side of the ship by the restrooms.  It was much quieter, and no coughing.

I was able to finish last night’s post about our dinner and start today’s post.

Today we are going on a tour of the Bridge at 10:00 AM, and that is about all we have on our schedule.

I headed back to the cabin at about 8:30 AM, and Stephanie was up and ready.  She wanted to go out walking on Deck 8, so we headed up there to do a few slow laps since I had just eaten my muffin and had a coffee, too much food for fast walking.  When we got up there we found out that there was a maintenance crew doing some power washing, so we could not walk laps around that area.  Plus, by this time, it was 9:00 AM, and we still needed to eat some breakfast before we went on the Bridge Tour at 10:00 AM today.

We walked down one deck and went to the World Cafe for breakfast.  I had over medium cooked-to-order eggs with some yogurt and pastries and Stephanie had a ham, cheese, spinach, and mushroom omelet.  Both were good.  We just sat up there a while hoping our cabin was being cleaned.  We headed back to the cabin before our Bridge Tour, but it was not cleaned yet, which was OK, we just needed to use the restroom there before the tour.

We left the cabin and headed to Guest Services to check in there for our bridge tour.  We also needed to let them know about our Air conditioning.  We saw the maintenance folks working on something in the mechanical spaces by our room, and it seemed to be a little cooler last night, but it was also cooler outside this morning, only 75 degrees instead of the 82 degrees it has been for the last few days.  That could easily have made a difference in our room being cooler.

There were only 10 people allowed for the tour, and one person canceled, so the nine of us were taken up to the Bridge on Deck 6 for our tour.  The tour was given by a junior officer.  There were three people manning the bridge, two officers and one lookout.

We were taken over to the Starboard wing on the bridge and given an explanation of how everything worked from there, as well as showing us how the navigation system and radars worked.  The officer explained all about the rudder controls, the propulsion controls for the two propellers, and the four engines, there are two smaller and two larger diesel-electric engines.  They try to run the most efficient combination of engines at any given time. The engines produce all of the electric power for both the propulsion and for all of the other systems.  They try and run the diesel engine combination to achieve 85% power setting out of the 100% capacity, that percentage is the most efficient point.

We also learned about the gyro compasses and the normal magnetic compass and how they are used together for cross-verification.  We were given a demonstration of the navigation charting system and how it can be used to track ships in the vicinity.  There was a large container ship nearby and we could see it was headed to Korea and how fast it was moving based on the worldwide automated identification system used by all ships.

Next, we headed over to the small panel that runs the stabilizers.  We were only using one out of the two stabilizers today since the seas were fairly calm.  The officer disengaged the stabilizer and we could feel the difference, even with just the one in operation.  He put it back into service, and once again we could tell the difference.

We next went over to the central control area where the other officer on deck was watching the operation of the ship.  There are two sides, and his was the only one operation, so the officer giving the tour could use the small joystick used to steer the ship on the non-operational side without altering the ship’s course.  The GPS units were also on this side, and they indicated we were only 10 meters off of the prescribed course, which for the open seas was really accurate. 

Stephanie asked if there were any tours to actually see the engines, and he said that the behind-the-scenes tour we had already done goes into the engine control room, which we had seen, but there were no tours for the engine room itself.  However, he did take us into another room on the bridge where he could access all of the surveillance cameras and brought up several camera views of the smaller and larger engines.  They were shown on a gigantic screen made of several separate LCD monitors, but much larger than the camera views we had on the other tour.

He offered for anyone to get their picture taken in the open seat on the left side of the control panel, which he also identified as The Captains Seat, but no one did, maybe people misunderstood what he had said.

Overall, it was an excellent and informative tour and we were glad we had done it.  

After the tour, we headed back to our cabin and just stood out on our balcony watching the ocean go by.  With the cooler air and partly cloudy skies, plus the wind, it was a little chilly without any direct sunshine.  We were hoping to see some dolphin pods but did not.

After that, we headed to the World Cafe for some lunch.  Lunch was good and we stayed at our table for about 90 minutes, just relaxing and watching the ocean.  We both had the complimentary white wine today with lunch, it was good and was a little different from our normal Pinot Grigio.  Brandon stopped by on his way to get his laundry via a drink at the Aquavit Bar in the World Cafe.  We talked with him a bit, catching up on what he and his mom did last night after we saw them in the Living Room

After lunch, we headed back to the cabin to apply some sunscreen so we could sit out by the pool.  Since it was a little cooler today, but windy, we opted to sit out by the main pool instead of the small pool at the stern.  It was pleasant, especially when a cloud passed by and blocked the sun.  It was not hot in the direct sun, but it was glary.  It was enjoyable to be there and although it got a little sunnier, it was better than getting bet by the wind like we did yesterday at the stern pool.  

Brandon came by out at the pool and we had a fun conversation with him about some stories we all have experienced.  It was getting late and we needed showers, but we headed to the Explorer’s lounge for a glass of wine before we headed back to the cabin for showers.  We were there quite a while talking with some other folks, and talking with Shelia and Richard from Tuscon, whom we had met several days ago, but had not had the opportunity to talk with again.  They are both fun to talk to and we stayed longer than we wanted, but it was because we were having fun.

We finally made it back to the cabin and only had about ten minutes to wait before sunset, so we enjoyed our “to go” wine out on the balcony watching the setting sun.  There were just enough clouds to make it interesting and not block the sun as it set on the horizon.

We took showers and got ready to go to the World Cafe for dinner, it was all we were up for tonight.

We needed to get some money changed into smaller bills at Guest Services, so we headed there first.

We had our usual pre-dinner wine at The Living Room Bar and at about 7:15 PM, we headed up to the World Cafe Buffet.  Tonight’s dinner was a Caribbean Theme, and there was jerk chicken, swordfish skewers, mahi-mahi filets, spicy rice, and several other Caribbean dishes.  The spicy rice was one of the hottest spicy things we have everhad on a cruise before.  Most of the items were good, but the swordfish on the skewers seemed overcooked and had a strange texture, almost chalky. 

There was key lime pie as one of the desserts and it was also good.  Stephanie had a vanilla gelato with chocolate chunks in it and it was one of our favorites to date for the gelato bar.

After dinner, we headed back to the Living Room Bar for a nightcap.  Brandon and his mom showed up and we talked with them for a while.  The piano/violin duo was playing in the Atrium, and after they finished the other piano player played.

At about 10:15 PM, we called it a night.  We have to meet in the theatre tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM for our excursion in Cabo San Lucas, so we did not want to stay out late.