Day 113 - Thursday April 20 at sea - day 1

Sea Day photos
position at 7:15am: N32 35.21 latitude W22 12.55 longitude
(2463 miles E of Bermuda, our next port)
temperature: 62F, mostly sunny
distance since FLL: 35,955 miles
So, the Atlantic was kind to us last night and we had relatively smooth sailing. Debbie did go to the PGT dancers' show, Poetry in Motion and she enjoyed it. It was very lightly attended. There is the smallest passenger load to date aboard and maybe it was because people had just too full a day in Madeira. Also, it was the 2nd time this show was performed so maybe a lot of people had already seen it. It was a very well done and an energetic, all-dance performance and Debbie was glad for the 2nd chance to get to see it.
Clay had an early morning walk and enjoyed it. It was calm and cool and there were a lot more walkers this morning. Debbie slept in so we had a late breakfast at Compass Rose. Here was the first big surprise of the day. As we were being walked to our table, Debbie turned to Clay and said, Is that Jason in a gray coat and tie! It was! Debbie went up to him and gave him her congratulations on his new suit of clothes and new Head Waiter responsibilities. Jason was just beaming. What good news. Jason is a really excellent waiter and he deserves this. Hopefully, as a Head Waiter even more Voyager passengers will benefit from his strong skills. Jason told us that he was replacing Marcel. We don't remember if we mentioned this before but we did see Marcel heading home with his luggage in Funchal. We wished him a safe trip home and told him it was a pleasure to meet him and that we would miss him. It is amazing how you miss people that you have seen everyday. There have been a few staff and crew changes over the past 4 months and it is amazing that we really do notice many of them. Oner, one of our favorite wine stewards, seems to have left the ship (unless he has just been moved to Signatures!) and we would really miss him, but our favorite wine steward, Ricardo, is back in Compass Rose so we are not too bereft over the loss of Oner. Debbie said last night that she will really miss having Ricardo bring the wine to dinner every night when we get home. (Clay really took umbrage because while Debbie cooks all week, Clay is responsible for cleanup and weekend mornings' cooking AND wine service every weeknight!) So, again congratulations to Jason on the promotion and good luck, you deserve this. At breakfast, Debbie asked if they had chocolate croissants before ordering since it was day 2 since they last served them (and according to the 'official schedule of chocolate croissants' that the waitstaff quotes they should have been available). No chocolate croissants. So, she ordered raspberries to start and a double order of Swedish pancakes. Clay had a blueberry muffin and blueberry pancakes.
We wandered from place to place this morning waiting for our cabin to be ready for us. We seem to have gotten out of our usual place in the rotation this segment and it is later and later before we can get back in. So, we happened to be cooling our jets staring into space in the library when we had our second surprise of the morning. A couple had ridden past in the elevator and since Debbie was just sitting staring into space and they passed by in it, she smiled and nodded to the man whose eye met hers. A few minutes later, the man and a woman approached us as we sat in the library and asked if we were Debbie and Clay. Guilty! This was Ewald and Suzy from Boca Raton. Ewald had been reading this journal since the beginning as they would be joining the last segment and had never been on Voyager. He wanted to know more about the ship. We are glad we could help make them feel like they knew the ship and crew as well as we do after months of living this trip vicariously. Sometimes the things we do have unexpected consequences and it makes us feels good to know that sometimes those unexpected consquences are happy and beneficial. So, check the pictures. (Suzy looks better in real life than a snapshot can show!) We had two great surprises in one morning. On a day that should have been a slow sea day, too. This is great. (Debbie did remember later that she had exchanged an email or 2 with Ewald early on about his boarding in Rome and is sorry for not remembering this when we talked this morning.) Ewald strongly encouraged us to go to the 10am lecture by Bill Miller on Atlantic Ocean Liners. We have not attended many lectures on board and the most recent one was disastrously bad, so we did not enthusiastically promise to attend, but Ewald stayed on us and in the end we reconsidered and did go. It was a really excellent lecture. Bill Miller is really passionate about his subject and was very informative as well as entertaining. He said he will give 3 or 4 more lectures and we will make it a point to try to attend them personally. So, thanks Ewald! Great recommendation and weare glad we got off our lazy butts and went to the Constellation Theater!
The rest of the morning however we lazed. Debbie napped in the cabin and Clay on the balcony. We got up when Freddie rang 8 bells from the bridge to let us know it was time to go eat again. This is a habit that we really need to break! There was a sandwich bar on the Pool Deck today so it was easy to make the decision to return to Compass Rose. Ricardo met Clay with a Coral beer. Clay said that he guessed someone was going to have to drink all this beer in the next week and that he would have to step up. OK. There is a popcorn movie in the Conference Room at 1:30pm that Debbie really would like to see, The Chronicles on Narnia. We did not get a chance to see it in the theaters before we boarded last December. But, it is 2 hours and 20 minutes long and that would interfere with Debbie's plan to return to exercise classes this afternoon. Tough choice. Debbie does not think she is up for aerobics yet as she is still too easily winded, but is ready to try to get back to exercise. We'll see.
Debbie is still waiting for her Suez Canal Transit Certificate. She is getting worried that Jamie forgot about it again. Time is getting short and she thinks a Post-It on his door might be in order. Clay thinks not. Debbie does not want to wait too long and NOT get one. We need that Certificate for symmetry with the Panama Canal one. And, we waited a lot longer to get through the Suez Canal that we did the Panama Canal. So, we'll see on this too.
This afternoon Debbie went back to exercise classes. There were 3 back-to-back classes. Upper body tighten and tone, lower body tighten and tone and stretch and relax. It was good. But, Debbie was exhausted after. This is sad, there was an 82 year old woman in all 3 classes with her 2 daughters and Debbie did not have as much energy after class as that woman did.
Tonight is Informal. They are still serving the Tuscan menu in LaVeranda at night. While this menu sounds really good like the Pasta e Basta one did, it was really bad the night we went up. There is a new chef in LaVeranda since the Pasta e Basta menu and we really had some not so good pasta dishes there last time. So, we are loathe to return until the menu changes and may return to Compass Rose. As unbelievable as it may seem, we think last night was the first night on this segment that we had eaten in dinner Compass Rose (with the exception of Easter with Jamie & Dana). We had heard comments recently about Compass Rose seeming deserted at night and last night we experienced it. It was very empty and quiet compared to past segments. How strange. We'll see how it feels there tonight. Well, back from dinner and it was pretty quiet in there. We noticed our waiter hanging around us a lot with too little to do. Clay had salad, sorbet and a veal trio of sweetbreads, chop and shank ragout. The main course was not as big as it sounds. Debbie had a pasta appetizer, sorbet and filet mignon. For dessert Clay had spumoni and Debbie had more sorbet. Clay wanted to hurry upstair to see the sunset. The sun was about 1 hour or more from setting when we got up there. Debbie tried to tell him it was still light last night at 9:15pm when she went to the show. It was pretty cloudy out so there may not be much of a sunset tonight anyway. Debbie had thoughts of trying to stay up for the popcorn movie being replayed at 9:15pm, but decided to get some more rest instead.
Sea Day photos