She Said . . .
Overview of Our Mornings at Sea
It is currently the morning of Friday, March 29, 2019. I think. This is our fourth day at sea as we cross the Atlantic. It is about 8:30 in the morning and, as has been our habit during this crossing, we have had breakfast and are camped out on Deck 5. It is a beautiful partly cloudy day with the clouds hanging in the sky such that the sun is glistening across the water in a thick line literally radiating out from where we lounge on the deck at about a 30 degree angle.
If the past few days are any indication, we will rest here, reading, talking, working puzzles from a puzzle magazine I bought from Wal-Mart before we left (yes, I’m THAT person), and napping. Often, I am here longer than Blaise. He may go up to the cabin for a bit and come back. He might not come back at all. Yesterday, he went up to 10 and walked on the track for a couple of miles and came back.
For me, it is lovely to have this time, where relaxation is forced due to circumstances. The circumstances being that we are on the open sea floating around with not much to do. I have thought about participating in the many trivia games they have on the boat, but I get down here on 5 in a comfy lounge chair with my Kindle and think, ehh, I’m good.
In the afternoon, we usually go to lunch late. Neither one of us is very hungry, but they stop serving lunch at 2:00 or 2:30, depending on the day. Azamara is not like Celebrity or Royal Caribbean where there is always lots of food available at all times. After lunch is served, you can only really get pastries and finger sandwiches until dinner time. There is a patio area where they might have burgers and hot dogs until 5 PM, but I have not ventured up there to find out since I love a good burger or dog and I am trying to not over indulge. I have also seen people wandering around with what looks like, from a distance, frozen yogurt. But again, I am trying not to find out.
Usually, sometime in the afternoon, we both try to get some exercise in. We are on different time schedules for this. If I make it too late to the gym, all the equipment is taken, so I head up to deck 10, where the walking “track” is. It takes 14 ½ laps for a mile. Odd number. Depending on the day, there are a few people making the circuit.
The other day I was out there walking because every single machine in the gym was in use, hoping to get in 3 miles. Lots of people out walking that day. I was walking at a good clip, lapping most folks out there, except this older man who looked to be in his 70’s. I could not keep him from lapping me to safe my life. While the guy was only walking, he was really trucking. Even my long legs couldn’t keep up with him. Usually folks walk counter clockwise on the track. And that is what was happening that day (Wednesday, I believe) until . . . some dude comes out and screws everything up by walking clockwise on the track. Dude! You are mucking this up! Not cool. I suspect the gods, or maybe the captain of the ship, did not appreciate this because soon after he arrived, I could see the rain heading our way up ahead. Not long after he started his clockwise circuit, we drove right into the rain. Time to go. Didn’t get my 3 miles in - just 34 laps.
After exercising, we hang out a bit, clean up, and go to dinner. While I have suggested the shows to Blaise from time to time, he does not like to go. I don’t know what his deal is with them, but he absolutely refuses to go. Maybe it was the time we had Charo on the ship. I’m not sure he ever got over that. The shows haven’t sounded really that interesting yet, but if one does, I will likely simply go without him.
Recife, Brazil
After we left Salvador, we had another day at sea before we got to Recife. The day at sea went similarly to those described above.
We did not really plan anything in Recife. What is nice about Azamara that you don’t get with Celebrity, is they have a complimentary shuttle into town or the main attraction area at each stop. Celebrity will often have the shuttle, but you have to pay. With Azamara, it is included in the price of the cruise.
So we took the shuttle into town. They dropped us off at the “Cultural Center” which consisted of booths of locals selling their wares in what appeared to be some old fort. While the structure itself was interesting, and the local crafts were actually quite nice, this “Cultural Center” was in an area of the city where we did not feel safe. At all. We walked across a bridge, still felt very uncomfortable, turned around, walked back, and waited for the shuttle to go back to the ship.
On the way back to the ship on the shuttle, we drove through the area they should have dropped us of at. Before we got there, in reading about Recife, I found the street where all the historical sites were and figured that is where they would drop us. But no.
Nothing lost in Recife. Having never heard of it before we booked this cruise, we really didn’t feel as though we missed out on anything.
First Day of the Crossing
Tuesday was the first day of our crossing the Atlantic. We have 4 days at sea. Tomorrow we reach Cape Verde, an Island off the coast of Africa formerly part of the Portuguese empire, then three more days at sea before we reach Morocco.
The Captain, modified his sailing plan by about 10 miles so we could sail by a very interesting Island, he had been to several years ago. It is an island owned by Brazil and over 70% of this island is a national preserve. No, I don’t remember the name. There are a little over 1,000 residents of the island and they allow very few visitors to the island to preserve the natural habitat of the animals, birds, and sea life there. They maintain very close control of the land and seas near the island and monitor everything. For example, if in their monitoring, they find turtles nesting and laying eggs on a beach, they completely shut down the beach until the little turtles hatch.
Visiting the island requires special permission and a much smaller vessel than ours.
All that aside, the landscape of the island was interesting and beautiful.
The Captain was kind enough to slow down by the island, giving us a narrative about the island as we sailed by. Then he turned around so those on the other side of the ship could get a good view of the island.
Second Day of the Crossing
The only other thing to note of the last three days at sea is at approximately 9:00 AM on Wednesday, we crossed the equator. If you have never crossed the equator at sea, you are a polliwog. This is our second crossing of the equator on a cruise ship so we have not been a polliwog for a couple of years. The first crossing was on that fateful voyage when I broke my face in Australia.
This crossing was a bit different. Azamara and the Captain, made it an event; not really something I remember Celebrity doing when we crossed in 2016. The Captain got on the loudspeaker about 5 minutes before we crossed to tell us it was about to happen and to look for the white line in the water. (He had told us the day before it would happen about 9 AM then next day, so we were already expecting it.) Then at the exact time we crossed the equator, he blew the horn for a good 30 seconds.
Later in the day, there was an equator crossing ceremony where King Neptune and his queen paid us a visit. A silly ceremony, but fun nonetheless.
That evening when we got back from dinner, we had a certificate laying on our bed commemorating our equator crossing.
Third Day of the Crossing
We haven’t seen another boat/ship since the island on day one of the crossing. Not surprising since we didn’t see any, the first time we crossed the Atlantic in 2017 when we went from Barcelona to Fort Lauderdale.
And what I liked about our first Atlantic crossing, is what I do not like about this crossing - the time change. While crossing from East to West, we had the added benefit of gaining an hour nearly every night so it felt like we were cheating the system. But this time, we lose an hour here and there.
It is not a daily time change this time because we are traveling from southwest to northeast, where as when we crossed the Atlantic the last time, it was much more closer to a straight east to west crossing. Also, we started 2 hours ahead of Central time to begin with in Rio.
Currently, we are 4 hours ahead of Central Daylignt Savings Time.
Weather
The weather has cooled down from the high 80’s when we got to Rio to the mid 70’s right now. While the high 80’s is too warm for me (as I get older), the mid 70’s is quite lovely.
It is interesting to note, we have hit all four seasons in a 2 week time period. When we flew out on March 17, it was still officially winter in Texas. When we arrived in Rio, it was summer there. Then their fall equinox hit, so we were in fall. Then when we crossed the equator, we were into spring in the northern hemisphere. I feel we should get some sort of prize for this.
Food
Everyone always asks about food. The food on the ship is great. Every night, not only do they have their feature dishes for appetizers, soup/salad, entrees, and dessert, they have dishes they offer every night, in addition to a chef’s special, and an international cuisine special highlighting food from a different country or area of the world.
For example, two days ago it was Great Britain, so the international cuisine was bangers and mash. However, they also had a fish and chip option that night. The french fries were nothing special but the fried fish was some of the best I have had.
Blaise always skips the appetizer and goes straight to the French onion soup. He loves that Gruyere cheese all crusty on the top. I do too, but since I am trying to be somewhat good, I usually stick to a salad option for that course. That is so I can justify in my mind having dessert, which I have not yet passed on in the evening.
I have not weighed since day 2 of the cruise when I had not lost or gained any weight since starting our vacation. Despite my daily exercise (I only missed one day when I had a headache), I suspect with my daily desserts after dinner, I have gained a couple pounds. It’s a balance. I want to enjoy my vacation and part of that is having a delicious dessert. Guess I’ll have to work extra hard when I get back home. The good news is most of the courses are relatively small portions. Not sure that makes up for the dessert though.
Other meals to note that were particularly delicious: the chicken parm on Italian night, last night’s prime rib, the pate’ I had a couple nights ago, and a pasta dish with a delicious brown sauce and prosciutto.
I think my favorite dessert so far has been the chocolate and cream cheese brownie with the caramel ice cream. I also had a chocolate lava cake the other night with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce that, although it was not very lavaey, it was still delicious. I always love the chocolate and caramel combo.
What’s Next
We are nearly 2 weeks into our vacation with one more week to go. The time has flown by. It was only yesterday, that I really started thinking about what I need to do at the office when I get back.
We are at sea again today, arriving around 8 in the morning in Minelo, Cape Verde. Cape Verde is a small island nation, formerly a part of Portugal. Then three more days at sea, arriving in Agadir, Morocco on Wednesday. Then Casablanca, Morocco on Thursday. We hit Lisbon, Portugal at 6:00 PM Friday and get off the boat on Saturday.
There is something so comforting about the sound of the waves as the boat pushes forward. I am at peace with the world.
He Said . . .
So after a short sea day we made it to Recife, we didn’t have anything formal lined up in the way of excursions mainly because we didn’t see anything that looked like it was going to be worth doing based on the very few options offered. So we decided we’d hit the bus and go to the “Cultural Center” and walk around the downtown area to get a feel for the Northeast area of Brazil; it is so different from Rio. It is a huge city and you can see a huge number of fairly good sized apartment buildings; not sky-scrapers but 20-40 story buildings, probably 50 or so spread across the landscape. That’s the strange thing though, very modern buildings but the poverty on the streets looks worse than Salvador from what I saw.
Back to our cultural center, we got off the bus and went in thinking there would be a museum or something along that line, I was way off, it was a series of tiny shops crammed into a building that was made up of 4 wings with a general look of a cross if you were to view it aerially - very run down, with a shop keeper struggling to make ends meet, it was very depressing and I thought what an existence. I was quite thankful for back home and was ready to go immediately. We decided to take a walk around the area and headed out; we made it to the corner before we realized that we probably should pull up on the reigns and think this through - we had no briefing data on safety of the area, no idea what was around the next corner of the next street and when we got to the very first corner we had encountered a make shift homeless camp complete with open fire cooking -- we decided after crossing the river and seeing the shanties on the river that we shouldn’t be there and returned to the cultural center to make our way back to the bus and ship. Unfortunately we passed right by the main shopping area on the way back, at least according to our guide book it was, about 2 blocks from the port but by then we were out. It was oppressively hot and we were ready to get back after what we had seen in the past 3 hours. It’s a shame, I suspect there are some very nice areas that we didn’t have an opportunity to see, oh well, maybe next time.
Back at sea…
I haven’t said a great deal about the cruise line as I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about losing my anonymity amongst the larger numbers of guests, this ship only has 700 guests vs the typical 2-4 thousand Celebrity has, but I really like it; they call you by name, you see the wait staff on deck and they chat with you, AND they seem sincere as well as my favorite part, I have not been asked for my seapass card once thus far, virtually everything is included. It really is all inclusive, it really is very well done!!
So the big event after leaving Recife was the crossing of the equator; if you haven’t ever done it they usually try to make a big deal out of it just like crossing the international date line back in the day. Anyway until you do it on a ship they deem you to be a “Pollywog”, don’t ask me where it came from but fortunately for us, we had been through the initiation; if you haven’t ever done it before you must swear your allegiance to King Neptune and be doused with some sort of mango concoction and then dropped in the pool to rinse off. It was great comic relief for those poor souls who had never been through it before -- BTW, that included our captain, who was only forced to swear his allegiance but forwent the food and water merriment… I suspected that after 30 years at sea he had probably crossed the equator many times but had never been through the ceremony to mark the occassion… All good fun and it broke up the first day of the crossing quite nicely.
The other item of note that you would NEVER see on Celebrity was that the captain decided to deviate the course a bit to take us by an island off the coast of Brazil, about 200 miles offshore, so we could get a look at a natural nesting ground for green turtle conservation; he went up the starboard side, turned around and went back down the port side so everyone could get a great view before turning around and heading across. Apparently he had been there many years ago and thought we might enjoy and return someday. He could be right, there are only 1,500 people on a series of 4 islands and the population is almost entirely conservationists, even Darwin wrote about it during his travels. Ami took a panorama of it that we plan to frame and hang up once we return.
So about now my mind continues to return to the house and where we are in the construction phase while we are out here. When we left the site prep was all done and the form boards were up for the foundation. That meant that the piers had been poured and the additional pad for the chimney should be complete and we should be ready to receive the home once we return. We get home on the 7th and the tractor trailers of logs are supposed to arrive at our gate on the 10th so we won’t have much time to make sure everything is ready -- I sure hope that foundation got poured and is cured before we get back!!! I keep thinking about electrical outlet placement, antenna locations for TV’s, water drilling and septic system locations. Just before we left I spent about 4 hours researching how big the air ventilation duct needed to be to vent the range outside, who knew there were only two ranges that even support floor vents these days, Jenn Air and Kitchenaid, that’s it!!! Lots and lots of details to work out but I’m confident that between our General Contractor and ourselves we’ll work out all the details. It really is beautiful, it’s so serene - the bears are another story and I believe that having gun is a given. I can’t wait to finish up Brandon’s place so we don’t have to make the 9 hour drive in one day as we have been. Enough of the house concerns for now, it will be fine I’m sure.
Lastly, I’m rereading Oracle 12c after having polished off a nicely done novel early on; a lot of CDB and PDB information and common and local privileges but I won’t bore you with that; feel free to Google Oracle CDB and you can read all about it!!!
My observation is that the people on this cruise don’t behave like our typical Celebrity brethren, now don’t get me wrong they have issues but they are different issues -- on Celebrity they have the 1,000 yard stare and you wonder how in the world they found the boat, especially in a foreign country without being able to speak any language proficiently (including English) but these folks seem to have the mental acuity but the bodies are falling apart, not as though they are all in Hover Rounds, no they are on canes and a few walkers but for the most part are trying to get around and maintain their independence without conceding to the wheelchair; I, for one, am very impressed with their tenacity!!! Cape Verde tomorrow, Brandon I will call you to login and move money for the house purchase when I find a wifi. More soon…
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