Friday, Day 76 - Mar 23 - Cruising the Indian Ocean

It is a sunny calm day in the Indian Ocean; a perfect sea day! We have our usual breakfast and Dick is off to his lectures. Terry Bishop is speaking on “The India Trilogy, Part I, The Great British Take Away, the East India Company” at 10AM. Then Michael Scott is lecturing on “What is so Special About the Seychelles” at 11AM. Besides the on going outdoor games, bridge and card/board games inside there is a new activity, the guest Easter Choir led by Patsy Roux. That ought to be a nice program come Easter.

Carolyn works on the blog for awhile before going to cards with Sarah where she makes a cute Easter card. Later she and Dick go for lunch in the Compass Rose where the leek quiche is back on the menu rotation.

At Noon the Captain tells us we are just over one degree north of the Equator. We will cross it around midnight for the third time. We have 13,000 feet of ocean below us and are traveling at an average speed of 19.2 knots through calm seas with a slight breeze. He is in a hurry to get to the Seychelles!

After lunch Dick gets involved in a book and misses Dana’s Writers Workshop on “Exploration of Place” and the afternoon lecture by Don Walsh, “The Indian Ocean - Path Between East and West”. Carolyn goes to Julie’s card class where we make another decoupage card.

It is formal optional tonight and the Seven Seas Society Members Party is at 6PM. We get dressed up and head for the theater with every intention of going, but as we walk by the Navigator Lounge, we see Clive is playing. We dearly love listening to him and there are chairs available so we sit down, have a drink and enjoy his music and a nice sunset.

At 6:30PM we head to the dining room since this is a night that the service can be slow when the party group all arrive in a pile. Dick has Miso Seabass and sticky rice, Carolyn has a very nice steak. We both have our special order salad and lemon meringue pie.

After dinner we go up to deck 11 to see what it looks like with the ship running dark. It is cloudy so the stars aren’t out. Back to the room, we get ready for bed. Dick reads for awhile, but Carolyn goes out on the balcony. The clouds have mostly disappeared except for a few fluffy white ones and the stars are out again. The moon is surrounded by a beautiful halo of pink and green mist. With the pleasant breeze, she sits down and spends a couple of hours out there watching the world sail by and napping before actually going to bed. Such a pleasure!!