Welcome to the Chronicles of

~ the Second Noordam Adventure ~ the 15th Anniversary Cruise ~
12/06/2008 - 12/17/2008

12/15 - At Sea

8:52am

Good morning all! It is another glorious day here in the Caribbean. The sun is shining, the wind is blowing at about 42mph, and the seas are rnning at a good 10-15 feet or so. Here is the mornign view from the balcony:

Last night was a little rougher than we have had it recently, but not bad. There were some people talking about how bad the seas were, though. I guess they have not done the whole out of NYC in winter thing.

Okay, I am not complaining, and I know that I am going to hear crap for this, but it occurred to me that today being a sea day is going to make my life easier. Let's look at yesterday, as it is a typical island day. You get up and get showered. When you get dressed, you put on shorts and a shirt. Then you go eat breakfast. Whrn you come back to the cabin, its time to head off for the shore excursion, so you change into a bathing suit and a different shirt, gather the gear and head off to the excursion. After swimming, you make your way back to the ship, tired and hungry, typically, take another shower, wash all the gear and bathing suits down, hang it all to dry, and get changed into shorts and a shit again. Then you go, grab something light to eat, and try to relax (a nap is often inserted here). Dinner comes, and you change once again into dinner clothes - slacks and a shirt (and sports jacket for me). At this point, I have had 4 different outfits on, taken 2 showers, and gotten more exercize than I ever do at home. After a few islands, you look forward to cutting those numbers in half!

And yes, it is entirely possible that I could get used to it!

But it is not all fun and games like you people all accuse us of having!!!! lol!

One of the traditions we have started here, and that seems to be catching on is the pre-dinner drink. We get dressed for dinner, and head down to the Pinnacle Bar for the grapefruit cosmos. We sit at a table for 4, and relax. The waitress asks if anyone is joining us, and we say, "Beats us!" Then someone else shows up! Last night, Clay and Dennis joined us, followed by Grace and Chuck. The six of us had a great time talking about the cruise, the excursions we have been on, the islands we have visited (both this trip and on previous trips), as well as things in our real lives. It is a very nice tradition.

When we got to dinner, the other 2 couples from our table didn't show, and apparently neither did anyone else form Grace & Chuck's table, so they joined us, and it was just the continuation of cocktail hour. We had a blast, and were laughing so hard about everything. Of course, Doddy (the waiter) just added to the experience. He handles the changes of faces without skipping a beat, and has decided that we can be messed with - and and that we will mess with him, as well.

Every night he makes recommendations as to what to have to eat. Last night, he made a recommendation for the souffle for dessert. We all looked dubiously at him, and accused him of trying to steer us toward a dish that they had made too many of, and that they needed to get rid of. So he said, "You want to see menus, I'll get you the menu." There is a separate dessert menu. So we got our menus, everyone looked at the menu, and you wanna guess what got ordered? 6 souffles. We were all laughing as we capitulated to Doddy's wisdom. And the souffles were really good.

Last night was also the big dessert display up on the Lido deck, poolside. So after dessert, we relaxed a bit (skipped the show), and went up to see the display. It was gorgeous. I didn't eat anything, but we hooked up with Trish and Greg from next door, and the reports from Carol and Trish was that they got it right - and that this evening, the desserts were sweet! Typically, the desserts have been very visually pleasing, but not so much on the palate, as they have really not been sweet enough, or are set up for another cultural bias. Or maybe its the altitude, I don't know.

Here are some of the pictures:

The teddy bears were really cute

The gingerbread house that was attacked by Christmas lights!

The white chocolate is a dragon

The Eiffel Tower came in both white chocolate and in white and dark chocolate. They were quite impressive!

Well, you get the idea. It was quite a lot of chocolate and desserts. They had fountains of chololate all over the place (we made a mess with them a couple of years ago), and more food than you could shake a stick at.

Today, there is a cooking demonstration in an hour or so that I want to go see. Then it is relax until formal night, and watch the ocean go by.

I should note that we are someplace pretty much directly south of Haiti, and that the wind, which so far this trip has blown frmo the other side of the ship, is now blowing from this side! That makes the balcony very windy. If we see the Captain tonight, I am going to ask him to head back to Ft Lauderdale in reverse, to kill the wind. After all, the port side of the ship is used to having all that wind! Don't think that will work, huh? Bummer....!

Okay, so we'll talk later. Hope all is well with you guys!

5:55pm

Greetings from due west of Haiti. Currently, we are headed due north, with Haiti easily within sight off the starboard beam. The seas, which had been getting a bit higher, have calmed down (the whole sea was full of whitecaps after breakfast), as has the wind a bit (now at about 35mph). Here is the sight from off the balcony:

At breakfast, we saw Neil. He spend 48 hours quarantined in his room. He said he was quite sick, and that there were 3 others on the ship in his condition. He said they brought him anything he wanted from the regular menus, but that he had absolutely no interest in food, and that a special cleaning team kept his room up. It did not sound like fun at all, but gave his wife Deb a chance to relax. When he finally got released from quarantine, he was getting ready to go ashore in Aruba, when his hairdryer exploded, burning him a bit. As a result, the only port he managed to see was St Thomas. Worse, since his cabin was on the starboard side, like ours, he didn't even really get to see land! But we were glad to see him up and about.

We went to the cooking demonstration, and came away with a couple of good recipes. The samples they sent around of the pork dish was quite tasty, and the pumpkin soup they made sounded great. Chuck did a hands on class making the soup earlier in the cruise, and he said it is indeed quite good.

The funny part was that the chef kept telling us to not really follow the recipe, to just use it as a guide, imagine what it is trying to taste like, and then improvise a bit. That is what cooking is really about, but it is funny to have a guy give you recipes to tak home, and then tell you to "ignore" it.

Then we went to the Captain's invitation lunch for the members of the Mariner's society (if you have cruised with Holland America before, you are automatically a member, so a third of the ship are members - they had to have 2 sessions). We got a table with Trish & Greg and Grace & Chuck. We had a great time laughing over lunch - telling family stories. At the end, we each got a ceramic tile from the cruiseline, which is one of the benefits of membership. They're nice, cork backed so you can use them as coasters. Or sell them on eBay (I seem to recall seeing them there in the past).

We went to the art auction, and didn't buy a thing - just confirmed that the auctioneer was annoying, and that he is frustrated with the sales from the cruise. You could see it as the auction went on. Its his own fault, with his style.

Then, it was naptime! Gotta love naptime!

As I said earlier, its formal night tonite - lobster night in the diningroom. I think they figure that's the only way to get you to dress up one last time on the cruise. We are going down to Grace & Chuck's room to see it with Trish & Greg. They are in a suite, and we wanted to see what all the fuss is about - is it really that much larger a room and balcony; are the perks worth it? I might be setting myself up, but it will be fun to see, and we have never had this opportunity before, so why not take advantage, right? We got a bottle of champagne when we first came on the ship (from the travel agency, as I recall), so we are taking it to their room, and we might do cocktails there. Or transfer the party to the Pinnacle Bar once we have seen the room. We'll see.

It is so cool to look up from typing to see land so close. Obviously, I am out on the balcony doing the blog. Have to take advantage of the chance before the cruise is over, right?

Clocks get set back tonite. One extra hour of cruising!

I'll talk to you all later tonite or tomorrow.

Til then....

Keep Smiling!!!

Your Intrepid Servant, the Timethief Beachbum