October 19, 2024 Sea Day #8

    Today was Sea Day #8. Again the clocks were advanced forward one hour overnight. The temperature at 8 a.m. was 21°C and mainly cloudy.

   We started the day with breakfast in the dining room just before 8 a.m. and finishing in time to go to the library for the daily Sudoku. Then it was on to the World Stage for Dr. Robert Hilt lecture The Hidden Universe about nebula and galaxies that are seen best by the Webb and Hubble space telescopes. If using binoculars to view the stars it is best to be away from cities to observe the fainter stars. 

   There was no Line Dance lessons today, but we met Jo and Mike for some ballroom dance tutoring. Then we went to Virginia Stilt’s presentation on Carnivorous plants. They fall into three main categories. One is Pitcher plants (Sarracenia), which we saw in the Cloud Forest Sanctuary in Kona. There are different kinds around the world that are not related, but developed the same structure for catching rain water which attracts tiny organisms. Another kind are called Sundews and another is a small underwater plant known as Bladderworts.  Some unusual carnivorous plants are only being proven to be insect eating in the 21century. Along the east and north coasts of Australia there is a carnivorous plant called the rainbow plant.

   The captain’s early afternoon announcement advised that the ship’s position as 46.22° north and 139.27° west on course 40.17° NE travelling at 21 knots. At noon the temperature was 23°C, there was a 20 km wind and the clouds were thinning.

   We had lunch salads in the Lido Market before walking on the Jogging Track on deck 11 and then attending the 1 p.m. navigation chart plotting in the Deck 12 Crow’s Nest. It was same two cadets and navigation officer, Joey, that we saw on the way to Hawai’i. On the way back to our stateroom we stopped at the Grand Dutch Café for our daily American and cappuccino with an almond cookie each.

    When we got to our stateroom there was an envelope on the mail slot with a Canadian Customs form, a letter explaining the disembarkation procedure for the Tuesday and colour coded luggage tags. We need to have our suitcases packed, tagged and set out into the hall by midnight Monday night. They will stored and in the morning transferred ashore for us to pick up in our coloured coded area before we proceed to Customs and out of the terminal.

   There was also a Future Cruise Deposit form that got us thinking about 2026 cruises. One of our bucket list cruises was to the Sea of Cortez which is usually only scheduled at Christmas time but they had one scheduled for April 2026. Timing is right between the end of curling season and the start of golf season. A bonus is that there is a repositioning cruise for another Holland America ship from San Diego to Vancouver two days after the cruise to Mexico ends. We easily can find things to do in San Diego for two days. 

   Tonight is the final “dressy” evening. The dining room menu tonight includes (to mention a few) Grilled Asparagus & Artichoke or Escargot Bourguignon as starters; Entrées - Beef Tenderloin Oscar, Pan Fried Sea Bass with apples, Tangerine Glazed Duck Breast, or Vegan Crusted Portobello Mushroom. The desserts were Dulce De Leche & Coconut Tart, Warm Chocolate Lava cake, Tiramisu and Crème Brûlée. Larry was able to help Graham with a computer issue.

   The entrainment this evening was the second show of singer Janien Valentine. Then at 9 p.m., B.B. King’s Blues lounge hosted the Koningsdam Ball with the ship’s officers and crew attending for the first dance which amounted to seven couples. After the first half of the first song everyone was invited to the dance floor. We chose to dance nightclub to the song with 24 other couples. The dance floor is an area of about 250 square feet, not very large. 

    At 9:30 p.m. was Chocolate Surprise on deck 2. Food and Beverage department servers mingled with people in B.B. King’s Blues Club, the Billboard piano lounge, Rolling Stone lounge and Ocean View bar passing out mini cups of chocolate mousse, chocolate covered almonds, milk chocolate covered Cheerios (which was interesting) and white chocolate covered blueberries. Until the trays were empty in about 20 minutes.


Steps. 11,698

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