May 25- At Sea

We are due to arrive in ICEland this afternoon at 5:00PM- which is 1:00 PM for the Eastern time zone folks. The Captain announced yesterday afternoon that because the seas were so rough we had slowed enough that our arrival would be delayed by about 2 hours. At least they are doing a great job of letting guests know, as best it can be known, what is to happen.

Moved the clock ahead another hour and went to bed. Ate breakfast in the dining room and then went to a terrific lecture about Great British Writers. Stayed for a cooking demonstration but it was terribly boring. It featured the Executive Chef of this ship as well as a French Chef who had been at Maxim's in Paris for many years. Both recipes were too complicated and most of the conversation was in French. Took them a lot of time and person-power to set it all up and there were less than 50 people present for that demonstration. I overheard a woman leaving saying to her friend, "If it takes 2 professional chefs an hour to prepare this recipe there is no chance of that happening in my house." How true for us too!

The newsletter proudly announced that the ship had been inspected by Health inspectors in New York City and in Halifax and received 97 and 99 as scores. I learned as I waited to leave the ship in Halifax a secret of the trade. There was an announcement on the PA "Assistant Cruise Director contact the Cruise Director." The Assistant Cruise Director stopped at my chair and said I have to act like I am calling someone on my cell phone because that announcement was code to alert all staff to the arrival of the Health Inspectors. Everyone needed to be in their "places." Interesting. Is nice to know the ship passed it all with flying colors. As a friend said, "Maybe that is why we like Regent so good...or maybe it is the bathroom, the walk-in closet or the King Size bed."

Today at noon the Captain announced that we probably noticed on the bright blue map at the beginning of this post a little zig and zag. It happened because at 1:00 this morning we encountered a fleet of 27 fishing vessels connected with about 25 miles of fishing net. He decided to make an adjustment and get around that obstacle. This ship last October, I think it was, ran over a long line or cable which got caught up in the pod engine. Damage was so great the ship had to go into dry dock and passengers sent home. That is the cruise that Jim and I-along with cruising friends- were booked on but had cancelled. So they didn't go to East Africa and neither did the cruise in April because of political unrest in Kenya and Tasmania. Guess we may not ever get there.

Thanks to Sue and others who were concerned about the rough seas. Today is so much better. Jim went to the 11th deck yesterday and could hardly stand up. We felt bad for the folks in those big bow (up front) suites.

We are now 80 nautical miles from Reykjavik and are off on a city tour the minute we dock this evening. It stays daylight for a long time so we should get to see a lot in Reykjavik.