We had a pretty rough ride last night. As was predicted by the Captain, the seas were much higher last night than yesterday. It was not extremely windy, but the ground swell from Nicole was about 15-18 feet, and coming from about 45 degrees off the bow of the ship. At least they were not entirely from the side, which makes the ship roll from side to side a lot.
Both Stephanie and I were awakened several times during the night by the waves hitting the ship, and other noises and vibrations. One was our bathroom door that slammed shut early on. We have had worse seas on other cruises, but this was in the top five for roughness.
Of course, due to all of the times we were awakened last night, we slept in. It also stays dark until about 8:00 AM on our current ship’s time when the sun rises.
We once again had the breakfast sandwiches in our room while we were getting ready. The internet service and TV were getting disrupted by the rough seas since it was obviously difficult to maintain satellite connection. I was not able to work on the blog other than to write up yesterday’s post on the computer for an upload later on when things calmed down.
Later in the morning, we put on our exercise clothes to walk some laps on the walking track on Deck 17. The wind had picked up by then and since it was coming off of the bow, it was added to the ship’s speed and was quite blustery out on the open decks. With the wind blowing and the ship rocking from the ground swell, it was difficult to walk, but great exercise, especially walking into the wind. Everyone on the walking track was weaving as the ship moved, and it was pretty funny to watch. We walked for a while and then did some exercises on the resistance machines out next to the walking track. They basically use your own weight for resistance via mechanical means, so in essence, you are lifting your own weight instead of having weights to adjust.
After exercising, we went to the Seaview bar for some bottled water and to talk with our friendly bartenders there. Franz was not coping well with the rougher seas, apparently they always bother him, so he was taking some type of prescribed pills for motion sickness. We thought that after all the time at sea, the crew would get used to the motion, but that apparently is not the case for everyone.
We decided to have a mid day refreshment, so Stephanie had a Peach Bellini and I had a Bloody Caesar. At noon, the Captain gave us a position and weather report. The seas were expected to slowly decrease, but would still be around 11 feet tomorrow. We were also heading on a more southerly course to try and get farther away from the storm, but then were scheduled to head more westerly tonight. At least it was warm, even with the wind. The high temperature for today and tomorrow is forecast to be 77 degrees.
We went to the buffet for a light lunch, and then headed back to the cabin to put on sunscreen and our bathing suits. We found an area out by the pool on Deck 17, which is one deck above the pool, and set up our beach chairs. It was quite gusty out on deck, but our chair location helped to block some of the wind.
At three o’clock a movie came on the outside movie screen, and it was pretty entertaining. It was called Eddie The Eagle, and was based on a real story about a British ski jumper in the Olympics at Calgary.
After the movie, we went downstairs one deck to the Seaview Bar and had an afternoon refreshment. At least the wind was less on this deck since it is more protected by glass walls. It had gotten tiresome dealing with the wind all afternoon, it gets a little irritating after a while, and things were always trying to blow away. We saw several people chasing their blown off hats during the afternoon.
We decided to go to the buffet for dinner tonight, so we headed back to the room to shower and change. Tonight is Italian themed in both the dining room and buffet.
Dinner was pretty good, there were a lot of items to choose from in the buffet. They had some really good cheeses out and even one that was a giant round cheese block that the server was digging out servings with a large spoon.
After dinner, we headed to Bellini’s and met up with the same couples who have been there all cruise. We had a couple of drinks, but headed back to the cabin fairly early at around 10:15 PM. We were tired from all of the sun and wind and not really sleeping well last night because of the rougher seas.