Day 22. Monday, March 17, At Sea, Crystal Serenity

The Crystal Symphony is at sea from Phuket to Yangon, Miramar. The MS Amsterdam is at sea from Colombo to Mahe, Seychelles.

St. Patricks day started cloudy but with less motion of the ship than the last couple of days. Towards the last half of the walk conditions got a bit iffy with periods of shower. There is a strip of a few feet of covered space all the way around the promenade deck under deck 8 verandas, making the walk possible with care.

My morning started off with Protestant Perspectives at 9AM. Pastor Voosen chose mostly Irish hymns to look at including Be Thou My Vision, What A Friend We Have in Jesus, and Come, Ye Disconsolate. We also looked at Lord of the Dance in honor of the theme of tonight’s special show.

World Cruise Games events included FreeCell, Paddle Tennis, Backgammon, Shuffleboard, and Darts.

Three of our Crystal Visions Enrichment speakers made their second presentations today, Edwina Currie started things off with “Lessons Learned”, covering her years in politics. Ken Rees soon followed with a presentation on Maritius.

By noon the day became mostly sunny. At his update Captain Vorland expected we will use a 4th generator (of 6) overnight. We are still far from land, the nearest being the island of Diego Garcia 644 (560 nautical) miles away. The afternoon speaker was Crocodile hunter Mick Pitman. His talk was listed as “Living in the Bush 16 Years Poaching Crocodiles”. That label was a bit off since the actual presentation provided a description of his tanning process and additional videos of catching the animals. My afternoon concluded with a visit to Afternoon Tea, with music provided by pianist John Mentis.

The sun was just on the verge of setting as I went off to dinner. Unfortunately, one of my tablemates had a bit of a setback. She fell leaving an elevator and broke an ankle. The Doctor has prescribed 3 days of bed rest with the ankle elevated. Laurie, wishing you a quick recovery.

The Evening Entertainment was “The Lord of the Dance”, a special show put together by the Crystal Ensemble of Singers and Dancers with help from guest artists Marty Silvestri, Christine Andreas, and Ian Cooper. The orchestra pit was moved in front of the stage starboard side with the combined forces of the Galaxy Orchestra and Astoria String Quartet. There was of course a lot of Celtic music with several clogging numbers led by Dmitri of the Ensemble, fiddle music combining Ian Cooper and the violinists from the Astoria Strings. Both the lead vocalists had great songs, and Tom sang Danny Boy accompanied by a dance performance by dance team Beverly and Curtis. The finale to the 45-minute extravaganza was a video recap of the World Cruise to date with a high energy clog by the Ensemble.

There was an Irish singalong in the Avenue Saloon. I stayed only briefly and the place was packed by the time I left. My first impression of Colin Salter was “pretty good”.

Today’s parting shot comes directly from Reflections. It has a list of Irish Drinking Toasts, and this one caught my fancy: “May misfortune follow you the rest of your life and never catch up.”

Roy

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tennis

shuffleboard

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orchestra

dannyboy

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andreascooper

fiddleduo

dmitri

finale

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