5th Sea Day - Sept 21

We both woke up early in the morning, although we didn't get out of bed until 7:00.  I had a difficult time sleeping, likely because we hadn't done anything very strenuous yesterday; but also did a lot of laying around.  I went out onto the balcony.  The sun was shining and the clouds were high.  It was a beautiful start to the day.

After showering and getting ready, we went up to the buffet for breakfast.  Waffles again, but I forgot to have them with Strawberries and whipped cream.  Oh well, maybe tomorrow.  We are getting much better about the size of our portions, and we didn't feel so full when we were finished.  The coffee is quite strong so Dawn finally took to ordering tea, and I didn't have more than one cup this morning.  Maybe later.

Of course, it was Sunday, and you know what happens on TV on Sundays.  Yup, football.  We got back to the room and turned on the TV for the 2nd half of the Green Bay - Detroit game.  Dawn stayed to watch that game, while I went down to a photography class.  I hadn't gone to the first one because it was introductory, but this one sounded like it would be good for review.

The class was supposed to begin at 10:00, but the fellow leading it was about 10 minutes late.  That meant he had to hurry through his lesson (powerpoint slides and discussion) so that the next group that were scheduled would be able to start on time.  I enjoyed the class.  It wasn't anything new, but it was good review of things that I had learned in the past, but had forgotten about.  As I said before, the next class was supposed to start (Making Martini's) and our instructor had to hurry through his last few slides so they wouldn't be too late.

I went out on deck to take a few pictures of the sea, trying out some of the things he talked about, adjust the f-stop and the shutter speed to get various depths of field.  I don't know how things worked out.  Perhaps you can see the differences in some of the photos.

[photos]

When I got back to the room, the football game was just over, and the post-game show began.  About 5 minutes into it, they switched over to the Seattle - Denver game, so that pretty much sealed the rest of our afternoon.  That game was a squeaker, getting us onto the edge of our seats as Denver came back from a large deficit in the 4th quarter to tie the game.  Fortunately for us (we cheer for Seattle), Denver elected to have Seattle receive the ball in overtime.  Seattle marched down the field (something they weren't able to do in the 4th quarter) and finally scored a touchdown, which meant they won the game - Wooo-Hooo!!

That left us with a couple hours before dinner, and because it was so nice outside, we decided to sit on our deck and read.  Our deck was in the shade by now, the sky was pretty much clear, and the sea was calm.  The water had taken on that turquoise colour we noticed in the Caribbean, and it was just quite nice.

 We went for dinner at our usual time.  This time, the new folks didn't arrive, so it was just Marlene, Donna, Dawn and me.  The menu looked interesting again, but we settled on prime rib, once again.  As usual, it was very good, and clearly we chose right.  Part way through the dinner, the captain came over the PA saying that an overturned boat had been reported and that we had to go back and check for signs of life.  The ship turned around and followed our route back a ways.  Then, we stopped, but we couldn't see anything outside the window in the restaurant.

The guitar playing comedian was playing again tonight, so we wanted to go to him.  We went back to our room after dinner for a few minutes, and I stepped out onto our deck.  There in the water, was the overturned boat.  It appeared to be a small, fishing boat, likely about 15 - 20 feet long.  We got right up close to it, and they were shining a light on it from the bridge.  There were no signs of life, nor anything to indicate that there had been anyone lost here.  We started to pull away, and the captain came back on saying that there was not sign of anyone, and that they had reported to boat to the authorities for a decision to be made by them.  The boat was about 400 miles from land, and about 200 miles outside US Territorial waters, so he wasn't sure if anyone would come looking for it. Then left at about 7:50 for the show.

It didn't begin until 8:30, but our experience is that the popular ones fill up quickly and there aren't many seats left if you get there after the first rush.  We wanted to sit in a place where we could easily see the stage, so had to make sure we were on time.

As expected the show was a lot of fun.  He was pretty funny and did a really good job of imitating the sounds of the older songs sung by groups, all by himself.  The show was only 45 minutes long, so we were out before 9:30 and back to our room by 9:40.

Then we read and watched TV, before heading to bed.  It is getting quite warm out now, so thank goodness for the air conditioning.