Day 119 - Wednesday April 26 At Sea Day 1

Sea Day photos
position at 6:30am: N29.58.40 latitude W69.02.42 longitude
(730 miles from FLL)
temperature: 67F, partly cloudy
distance since FLL: 39,114 miles
It was a quiet night last night with smooth sailing. It continues to be pretty smooth sailing this morning. We will be very happy to finish off the cruise this way if we are lucky enough for this to continue to Ft. Lauderdale. So, the chocolate ship shaped like Voyager! The top lifted off like a lid. Inside, not full of people as you might have suspected, but full of ooey-gooey white and dark chocolate mousse. Half & half. Did Clay get a picture of the chocolate ship with the top off? NO. He was posting last night's journal entry and captioning pictures. Debbie told him to look and he said in a minute. Well, in a minute pig-girl had snarfed up all the mousse and was licking her fingers! So, you will just have to take our words for it and use your imagination to visualize it.
Clay was up early and had perfect deck walking conditions this morning. So, last night's time change brought us back to our home time zone. This will be great not having to make any time adjustments to getting back home. Debbie was up early as well to finish off putting away last night's laundry. Today packing will be more or less completed except for what we need to finish these last 2 days onboard.
Today they are returning our passports to us, time for us to move along! For 2 hours this afternoon, they are gathering donations for the white elephant auction that will take place the next morning. The money raised by this is for the crew welfare fund. Jamie says that in the past year every crew member has received a refrigerator and a DVD player in their cabin from this fund. It is also used for the crew's emergency aid and transportation, etc. Of course, straight cash donations are always welcome. Tonight is our final Formal night and is the Captain's Farewell Cocktail Party and Farewell Meal.
We had breakfast in LaVeranda. It was a bit strange today. They are getting ready for their big inspections in Ft. Lauderdale, and they were literally turning things upside down. All the plates and bowls were stacked upside down and they do not stack as securely that way, so every single person approached and had a hesitation. Debbie had Smacks and peanut butter toast. Clay had his usual eggs. We did not get to check the littlest Spanish girl's teeth this morning. Yesterday, she had a right front tooth that was wobblying and did not look like it could make it to the end of the cruise. She left too soon after we arrived today and we did not get to check. She appears to have all of her other teeth and this may be the first tooth that she will lose. How exciting is that for her? Clay is sure that she is not the first to lose teeth on board here.
Clay walked by Gudrun's office this morning and thought she looked all alone in there. So, we used some of our free Internet time on the laptop in front of Horizon Lounge while we were waiting for our cabin to be ready to look for a 'placeholder' cruise to book onboard before we leave. Don't get excited. We are not cruising anywhere, anytime soon. The furthest out cruise available for booking now is Voyager November 11, 2007, 8 nights, from Funchal to Ft. Lauderdale. We would really like to cruise around South America before our yellow fever vaccines expire in 2010. Mariner has done this cruise for a couple of years and will do it in January 2007, but it is not known yet if it will go again in 2008 or 2009. So, we are holding an onboard booking while we wait to find out. We can hold this until July without penalties to see what the distant future cruise schedules hold.
We went to the last of Bill Miller's talks on cruising in the morning. He had a good crowd and gave a good talk despite some technical difficulties at the end that made him compete with Freddie, the voice from the bridge, at 12 noon. We collected our passports right before the talk began, and ate lunch in Compass Rose immediately following the talk. Clay had a hamburger and Debbie had chicken scallopini Princesses. We both had peanut butter ice cream. Yum! After lunch, it was time for more packing. Debbie has all but the last couple of bags packed now. She had thought to go to afternoon classes today. But after wrestling with clothes and luggage most of the day she was tired and sweaty already and decided to take a nap instead before showering and dressing up for the last Formal evening.
Debbie was out like a light and Clay had to wake her up to get showered and changed at 5:30pm. Capt. Dag's farewell cocktail party was at 6pm. Capt. Dag gave Debbie kisses. We forgot to take Bob! Sorry Bob. Clay did not get kisses either. This was kind of a sad night. They showed pictures of Navigator and Voyager meeting at sea. They showed the video of the day that the families of the crew got to come aboard in Manila. There were some songs by Amapola and one by Chris Riggins. They handed out the top 3 awards for the 'Day in the life of a Voyager' photo contest. Third price and first prize were won by the mother of the Spanish family and second prize was won by long-time repeater RSSC cruiser Carol from San Francisco. Capt. Dag spoke and so did Jamie. Capt. Dag said we had travel over 30,000 nautical miles since Los Angeles. (Since Ft. Lauderdale we have traveled even more and our figures above are in land miles.) Then there was a song by one of the Filipino crew, George, then a group of the Filipino crew sang the Salute Song (see photos) and members from every department poured onto the stage and the dance floor in front from the top and bottom of the theater. There were a lot of people up there, but clearly not all of the staff and crew because dinner was already being served at the time.
People are still laughing and talking about the Freddie, the navigator, voice from the bridge spoof from Monday night. We wish we had recorded it because it was just the most hilarious thing all cruise.
After Capt. Dag's farewell cocktail party, it was time for the Farewell Dinner. (See the menu in photos.) We had more courses tonight than we have had in months but since it is the last time we will be doing it... Tonight is the final performance of the PGT group this voyage. (Tomorrow night is the big screen cinema in the conference room of Syriana. The Constellation Theater will either be dark or is booked for something private.) All DVDs must be returned before 4pm tomorrow to avoid incurring charges. Tomorrow morning is the 'white elephant auction.' We kept everything that we bought, except for a few magnets that we gave to Sabine, our morning LaVeranda waitress who is obsessively collecting magnets from around the world, so we contributed some. Tomorrow afternoon is the last chance to redeem Dag's Dollars. (We are keeping ours as rare collectibles!) Passages has a congratulations to Mr. Chuck Walker for setting a new world cruise record for prize winnings of 492 tokens at last count.
Sea Day photos