December 22- A Day At Sea

Had a lovely dinner together last night. It is so fun to be with this group and to experience the great inaction.

We sailed by some big mountains along the way but the fog and mist mostly obscured them. There was no commentary about what we were passing but we were close enough in to see trees and cliffs and some beach. The sea is a little rough today and as the day went on it got even more so. We found a map on the TV of where the ship was and could see we had mo red away from the shelter of the land and into open water. White caps were al around and it was really windy on the balcony.

We had decided to go to the dining room for breakfast and ate with a nice couple from St. Petersburg. They really were not enjoying this cruise so I did find it hard to listen to their complaining.

We went back to the cabin and read for a while. Christopher dropped. by for a visit and helped get the CD and DVD from their steel drum concert working- sort of. Wonderful music and great sound. The people really responded with lively dancing. It feels good to me that all the crowd feels at home in our tiny cabin. I expect at the end of the day when we go to dinner, our cabin steward Mel, could scream at the mess....but when we return it is like no one has been in the cabin.

We all went to lunch together to our regular table and then went to hear Sylvia talk about the next port.- Casilda and Trinidad. Her description about 4 blocks of walking over very uneven cobblestones in Trinidad made me know that I wasn't going to try that. She said you share the road with cars and donkeys - plus you couldn't look up to see the lovely pastel buildings. but had to look down to be certain you didn't trip or step in something. So we decided to pass on the whole experience.

World trivia was next on the schedule. Ella, Jim, Will and I were a team. Natalie, Ardis and Christopher chose to play as individuals. The questions were in three categories- General, Sports and Geography. Our team got 5, 7 and 5 correct. Our collective brains got more answers correct than the individuals did. Made a great statement for the more minds the better the chances. Nevertheless it was great fun!

Back  to the cabin for a nap and then the group began to assemble for conversation and Happy Hour.

After dinner we had a lively and wild game of Taboo with the teams finally being Kathryn, Ella and Ardis (from the background) named the AEC team and Natalie, Jim and Elaine the  JEM team. AEC soundly defeated the JEM team but we al still enjoyed lots of laughter over the responses.

Will was kind enough escort Natalie and Ardis to their cabin and we were all off to bed for a long winter's nap.