Sept. 24,2018 On the Bering Sea

Or maybe still the Pacific. I’m not sure where the Bering sea begins or ends. Yesterday there wasn’t any land to be seen, it was foggy so there might have been some of the Aleutians somewhere. At different times I thought i saw land, however it was hard to tell as the sky was pretty much the same colour as the water in stripes that looked like land.

I started on out for my usual breakfast of muesli and fruit and as soon as the door closed and locked i knew i had messed up by not bringing my camera with me and that i had no key to open it again. So i hurried on down to the casino to see if my room key/casino card had been found and turned in and it had so that was nice to get it back. So back up to the room to get my camera. I sure hadn't planned to be taking all those extra steps this morning because of not being able to get back in w/o a key.

We had thought the cabin crawl was to be held this morning but after we and one other couple waited in the Atrium for 15 mins past the time it was supposed to be held and nobody there knew anything about it. I was quite peeved as i’ve been trying to get in on a cabin crawl for many many cruises and somehow have never gotten to do it. This event is usually arranged by private people through Cruise Critic and the ship isn’t involved in the details so there was no one to ask. There’s lots of people sitting and milling about in the Atrium and i quickly learned to not even bother to ask anyone if they were also waiting for it to begin because they had never heard of it before and then i’d have to explain what it was. Technically the way to get involved in these sort of secret cruisers events is to join cruisecritic.com after you’ve booked a cruise. I was terribly choked by the no-show and imagined that all the rest of the passengers who had signed up for it had their smart phones and got the info sent on them. Because i’ve never gotten a phone to use in the other ways it can be used i think this might have been the one and only time it would have helped me. I do have a phone at home and i only use it for phoning. Period. But even now it feels like i’d never get the hang of staring at my phone or be able to figure out how to use it for googling or finding an address or anything. My car has a built in phone and so i’m always safe with that. As well i do have my IPad but i’m not going to be able to receive the info. I bring it to log my days onboard and to play my game and no WiFi is needed for that.

So off i went to the fruit carving demo and it was pretty awesome to see these amazing chefs carve flowers and things on watermelons and cantaloupes. A nice woman from New Orleans started talking to me and we ended up chatting long after the fruit carving was over. By then it was lunchtime so i headed for the buffet and ended up sitting with a lady i had sat with before. I ate salad and a shrimp dish with white beans. As well, an Indian potato dish with something like chili on it all the while admiring the other ladies sweet potato fries. It would have been nice to stay there with her but i soon found out my seat was right under a very cold ac vent. So i gave my reason and moved on to my second round with a new lunch of excellent sweet potato fries, chicken noodle soup and veggies. I sat at a window table with another nice couple originally from S Carolina who said they recently retired and now live in New York State.

This afternoon i spotted another ship in the distance and there’s been a lot of rugged, mountainous islands on the port side. Whales were seen from Spinnakers Lounge during a break in the program and i was lucky to get a tail fluke in one picture. I thought i had been successful with several pics but most of my pics were of just water.

Then whales were spotted again just before the next event began which was cha cha dancing. I watched for awhile then returned to the cabin after getting a few things from the store. I was cold again so cranked up the thermostat and climbed into my bed with my IPad. Soon Annie arrived home and we just chilled for awhile. Tonight there will be an opera singer in the show lounge and i probably won’t attend. I don’t have any plans for the rest of the day so will play it by ear.

I went for dinner in the buffet and while i don’t usually eat much meat i got a piece of turkey and a piece of chicken as well along with carrots, couscous salad and a lot of other stuff that i’ve forgotten. Then dessert, oh yeah, never going to bypass the goodies so i had walnut cake, cheesecake, ice cream and when i spotted pkgs. of hot chocolate mix I took one to add some of the powder to my coffee and that worked well as a mocha coffee and i had a nice conversation with a Japanese fellow too.

I went back to Spinnakers and decided to join in on the game of Yes and No. After i signed an entry card and placed it in the box and found a good seat i started to regret entering it as i’ve never played it or even heard of it before. When it suddenly dawned on me that my name could be drawn and i’d be on the hot seat with a huge audience watching i started to chicken out. What to do.....the more i thought of it the more i panicked and wanted out of it. So the game began and somebody else’s name was drawn and she went down and sat in the hot seat. The whole idea of the game was to not say Yes or No. you also couldn’t say uh huh, nah, negative, nope or yup or positive or other forms of yes or no. The mc asked her questions and she did extremely well answering all without saying any of the wrong words at all. The next persons name was drawn and i knew i had to get out of there before mine came up. So i got up and first i moved to a dark seat farther away and from there i skulked to the exit before that woman said yes or no and a new name was called. I felt a little like an a&$;&ah0/ sneaking out like that and i’ll never know if my name ever came up or not so that’s the end of that story.

Annie and I have enjoyed Alex's towel animals every night and tonight Annie figured out how to make a towel rose. Isn't she clever and look how cute it is!