SEA DAYS

                                                             SEA DAYS

Although there are many "sea days" on this cruise we are not bored so-far.  One of the things that I enjoy is attending the lectures.  There are a half dozen lecturers on board.  These are people who have expertise in things related to the part of the world we are visiting.  I think they get free cruises for giving several lectures.  All the speakers are very good, speak without notes, and have interesting accompanying slides and videos.  Some of the talks I have attended include:  Explorers of the South Pacific; The Effects of Geography on the outcome of WWII; Coral Reefs; The Evolution of Whales; Pelagic Birds of the Pacific.  Betty attended an excellent talk on "How to take pictures with your cellphone."

I have joined a "Guests Choir".  There are about 25 of us and we rehearse most sea days.  In addition to a Director we have Section Leaders who are professional singers from the ship's theatre cast.

On Saturday we docked at the town of Hilo on the "Big Island".  In the morning I took a taxi into town where I was less than impressed with the seedy downtown area where there were too many people sleeping on the street.

However, our afternoon bus tour was very pleasant with stops at an outdoor zoo, a fine candy factory, a waterfall and a Japanese garden.

The vegetation is quire beautiful with lots of monkey pod and banyan trees.

The food on board continues to be very good.  Most mornings I breakfast by myself at the buffet, and then bring things back for Betty to enjoy on our deck.  The picture shows only a bit of her arm as she no longer wishes to pose in her undies.

Most nights we eat in the main dining room, but there are also two specialty restaurants for which you need reservations well in advance.  We enjoyed our meal in the Italian restaurant, particularly noticing my clergy person dinner companion glare at me as I got to my fifth and sixth glass of wine.

Saturday night we had a late reservation at the Chef's Table.  This is an unusual restaurant with a fixed menu that changes every three days.  Each menu is from one country and is accompanied by matching wines.  We had the British menu, which seemed unusual but was in fact very, very good.  We started with scotch eggs (quail eggs in sausage), then had traditional and chips.  To cleanse our palates we had shaved ice liberally soaked in gin and tonic, and then the main was Yorkshire pudding with roast braised brisket.  We could either have the included wines or the premium wines for an additional fee.  As the premium wines were mostly French we chose to stay with the regular stuff and had six glasses of very good South American and Spanish wines.  I think I fell asleep before I got completely undressed.