Day 24, Wednesday, March 19, At Sea, Crystal Serenity

The Crystal Symphony is in Yangon, Myanmar. The MS Amsterdam is in Mahe, Seychelles.

It was another laundry day, extending my walking time until close to 7:30. While we are slowly moving away from the equator we are still in the tropics and the morning weather was into the 80’s with a high humidity. The moon is still quite full and was shining brightly ahead of the ship and just to starboard. The entire trip from Bali has been very smooth, although we have felt a bit of motion a couple of times on the Indian Ocean.

Captain Birger Vorland was the special guest on today’s morning show, telling of his history at sea starting with sailing with his father as a young child on oil tankers. He commented very positively on regulations requiring regular rest periods for ships’ officers, and on the benefits of having staff alert and ready for the job. He talked a little bit about the generators. With 6 generators on board the most we can actually use is 5, He suggested that fuel consumption is pretty much a multiple of the numbers of generators in use while there is diminishing returns in speed. Our minimum is 2 generators at sea and one in port, with 3 probably being the most common setup.

There was another trio of Crystal Visions Enrichment programs, all with people we have seen before. In the morning Bill Toone started things off with “A trek through the Madagascar Rain Forest”. He hopes to be back for the 2015 World Cruise when the ship visits Madagascar. Edwina Currie followed with “My Life with Margaret Thatcher”.

We are presently in a relatively lightly used area of the sea. In his noon announcement Captain Vorland pointed out that we were just meeting a tanker on her way to Singapore, one of only a few ships we have seen since leaving Jakarta. Walking through the Lido Cafe towards Trident for lunch I got distracted by a lovely turkey roast and decided on lunch there. The afternoon Crystal Visions presentation was Rona Cant with “Just Do It-Become the Best You Can Be” detailing how she got involved in unusual activities for a woman. We also picked up our passports in preparation for tomorrow’s visit to Mauritius.

The World Cruise Games events today were in Shuffleboard, Golf Putting, and Table Tennis. I’ve had a major case of the drowsies today and didn’t do much in the afternoon.

Almost everyone was present tonight at table 102. One of our members has a friend getting on in Mauritius and will likely move to another table for the remainder of the cruise.

The evening entertainment was a triple variety show with violinist Ian Cooper, musical comedian Steve Stevens, and singer Christine Andreas. There is also a late night Liars Club with Ken Rees, Rabbi Hershman, and Steve Stevens. I will probably wrap up my post early today. Despite gaining an hour tonight I still expect to retire early, but will report tomorrow if I do get to what looks like a great Liars Club.

As today’s parting shot, by the calendar Spring is on the horizon. At least in Maryland it is quite elusive with one report of 10 inches of snow. Spring, we’re ready for you.

Roy

moon0319

dawn0319

shflboard

company

golfputt

tbltennis