Day 116 - Sunday April 23 at sea - day 4

Sea Day 4 photos
position at 7:15am: N32 27.27 latitude W49 20.55 longitude
(890 miles E of Bermuda, our next port)
temperature: 66F, Cloudy
distance since FLL: 37,849 miles
It was a rocky night. On deck this morning it was breezy (60-80 km/h headwinds) but moderate, about 65F. A squall came up and cleared the deck as Clay finished his third mile. The head wind is cutting into our speed as we are only making about 16+ knots instead of the 19 knots that we started out doing. We have about 900 miles to Bermuda and just at 2 days to cover them. We will probably have to pick up the speed a little to be on time.
Today is our last Sunday onboard Voyager for this World Cruise. Next week this time we will either be on the drive back home, or packing the van in preparation to head back home. Home. We have basically been turtles for the last 4 months and home has been wherever our luggage is, mostly Voyager, but sometimes a hotel room. But, those are not our real homes, home is where you plant your roots. Voyager has been a wonderful temporary home, but we suppose that we are land mammals and home has to have earth around it for us to feel really rooted and at home. We do love the variety and adventure of traveling and we do pretty well at it and enjoy it, but there really is no place like our home.
We have our winding down events going onboard these days (beyond all the suitcases and boxes moving around!). Tonight at 6:45pm, we have our turn at the International dinner in the crew quarters on deck 3. Tomorrow night we have a "Farewell Show" and cocktails in the Constellation Theater beginning at 5pm.
About 7:30am, the ship started slowing down. At 7:40, we were going only 10 knots, but by 7:50 we were back at the 16+ knots speeds. We still have a significant head wind, about 60+ km/h. In Capt. Dag's Vords of Visdom, he said that the wind was Force 5 on the Buford scale and was no longer southerly by westerly and now instead of a crosswind, a headwind. He said that he hoped by afternoon we would be in better weather and smoother seas. He still expects to be in Hamilton, Bermuda on time Tuesday morning.
We had our last Sunday breakfast in Compass Rose. Debbie had raspberries and Eggs Benedict. Clay had 2 eggs over easy and sausages. We both declined the champagne. We rushed Mishiel out of the cabin by 9am this morning because Debbie has missed seeing the movie "The Producers" everytime it has been shown. Today she made it a priority so we were parked in front of the TV while Mishiel finished in the bathroom. Debbie loved the remake of The Producers but she also really loved the original, so no surprises.
Clay did not watch the whole movie. He went to Bill Miller's 3rd lecture on the last Atlantic liners from the 1950s to 1960s period. It was good. He is a very informative and entertaining speaker. As Clay was leaving the talk, a woman stopped him on the stairs in the Main Atrium and said, You would be Clay. He would be. She asked him what roulottes are and showed him a printout of our journal from Papeete. He told her those are the trucks that come out at night on the dock area to cook and serve food. Clay forgot to tell her that if she checks the pictures for that day's entry that there is probably a captioned picture showing one or more of them.
Freddie came on at noon to announce that we are still in rough seas with 3 to 4 meter swells, westerly wind Force 6 on the Buford scale and cloudy skies with intermittent rain. He is still predicting excellent weather in Bermuda with a low of 64F and a high of 72F and party cloudy skies.
In other news, there was a Photo Contest yesterday. Anyway, we did not participate but it was a photo an hour 8am to midnight. They have to be unposed digital photos that would represent real life onboard Voyager taken in public areas or behind the scenes. They are to submitted by 5pm today in Club.com. They are supposed be judged by the Senior Officers and the winners of best picture of the hour posted in the Main Atrium in a few days. Then the best 3 overall pictures will be judged by votes and the winners announced in a public ceremony. Token update: some of you may remember that some months ago Voyager ran out of tokens. They begged people to exchange them for 'token certificates' but they still did not have enough tokens to distribute so 'Dag Dollars' were produced and handed out instead of tokens. So according to the Passages today Dag Dollars will be expiring in a few days. "Token Redemption Only for this world cruise, you have additional options available for Token redemption prize gifts. In association with our On-Board Boutique, 1 Token has the value of $1.00 towards any boutique item of clothing, hats or bags - full payment by tokens is required. Visit the Boutique anytime to check out their selection of Clothing, Hats or Bags, but redeem your chosen gift items only during the token redemption today from 3:30pm to 5pm. REGARDING 'DAG'S DOLLARS' Your Dag's dollars are not redeembable on other ships in the Regent fleet. They were produced and used during this world cruise only. Be sure to exchange your Dag's Dollars, or ask for a token certificate, which will be valid on any future Regent cruise."
So, it is lunchtime. They are having a paella and jumbo prawns lunch up on the Pool Deck. We will go down to Compass Rose again. Debbie had a small bowl of pasta as an appetizer and chicken with rice pilaf entree and a scoop of cinammon ice cream. Clay had a salad, golden-fried John Dory and pishachio and cinnamon ice creams. Don Collins, the Assistant Food & Beverage Manager, that spilled the beans on Clay's Coral surprise, stopped by our table at lunch and noted that Clay was still drinking the Coral. (Ricardo would like Clay to lay off and probably Don as well since they have both had some of it and agree that it is an excellent beer and would like some left over for the crew!) Don said that he had been ordered to keep looking for local beers by Laurens, but that try as he might he has been unable to find a mid-Atlantic brew. Clay laughingly told him that was surprising, that with all the demand you would have thought there would be a ship out here somewhere brewing and selling local beer. Debbie told Don that's OK you tried, keep up the good work. It is pretty funny. Now Clay is wondering if there is a local beer brewed in Bermuda...
Well, Debbie did not try for any exercise classes today. She figured if it was too rough for yoga yesterday morning that it is too rough today. If classes were substituted for something that could safely be done, Debbie still wasn't really up for it. So, it is "International Attire" and we are supposed to wear unique costumes we might have bought along the way. Debbie has laundered and ironed our longyis from Myanmar. Don't know how much more "unique" we will get unless we add our Madeira hats. We have heard some good comments about the dinner last night from people in the first group. So, we are looking forward to it.
Back from the International dinner in the crew mess. Capt. Dag's gravlax was the biggest hit followed by the Italian's 2 pasta station according to Capt. Dag. No, really. But, there was far too much food. Sausages, curries, foie gras, Chicago hot dogs, more fish, breads, cheeses, desserts. It was all too much. It was a fun evening. We sat with Paul, who was on last year's WC and who came aboard recently and whom Debbie had been introduced to earlier by Peggy (xrvlcruiser) but Clay had not met him yet. And with Peter, from The Netherlands but lives in Portugal, and who lives on deck 7 in the aft and who we had spoken with a few times but never had a meal together. Lars served Bob an Aquavit from a bottle encased in ice. We learned from Patrick, who had a bowl of pasta at our table, that tomorrow they are serving a brunch from the galley. A new chef recently arrived from Mariner was at the dinner, we did not get his name but Paul and Peter knew him. Capt. Dag told us that tomorrow we will meet Navigator at sea (we had met Mariner earlier in this cruise). We had wondered what was up with the course. As we sat at lunch in Compass Rose today, the ship suddenly made a left turn and the ship leaned over some. We continued to travel further south after the turn according to GPS and we couldn't figure out the sudden course change in the middle of the ocean. It turns out that it was to put us on a course to intersect with the Navigator en route to Funchal! They are just full of surprises. Patrick said they pull out all the stops in the last days because they can see on our faces that we are burned out and ready to go home! Everyone we have talked to is ready to go home. Four months is a long time. Capt. Dag told Debbie that he thought it was too long. That he had been aboard almost 5 months and he was ready to leave after 4. She told him, yeah and you are being paid to be here. He clapped her on the shoulder for that with his big hands. He had told us a story earlier about another ship's captain he knew with the biggest hands he had ever seen. That guy must have had some freakishly big hands for Capt. Dag to think they were big because his hands look enormous to Debbie. So, anyway. We met some new people and saw some new crew/staff and the Safety Officer's wive and baby. Enjoyed all the costumes everyone had on tonight. Some people had no costumes because they had already packed them. We would have had the same problem but they did give us the invitations a few days earlier so we kept out the longyis. We were not the only ones in longyis we are happy to say. Clay was the only one with an Arab camel stick though. (He got that in Dubai.) So, after most people had left Jamie invited everyone into the crew disco and we took that as our cue to exit and headed back to the cabin. It is still pretty rough and we are waiting to enter that fabled Bermuda high. It was a rough ride down on deck 3 even, though as Patrick pointed out the water was not coming over the portholes. He said that gets to him even but that we weren't there this evening. We have been really lucky that we only had rough seas in the obvious places and no rough seas in a lot of other obvious places. It was rough crossing the Pacific, no surprises and then it was really calm in the Tasman Sea and Bass Straits, big happy surprise. It was very rough in the Great Australian Bight and here now, no surprises. But, it was very calm seas for a couple days out here in the mid-Atlantic which was a pleasant surprise while it lasted. We have had really good weather for most of this 4 months when you think about how few times it has even rained. We consider ourselves very lucky.
Sea Day 4 photos