Sunday, Day 127 - May 13 - Cruising the Caribbean Sea

Since we turned the clock back another hour last night we are up by 7:15am. That works out well since it is Sunday and the church service is at 9AM. We go to breakfast when the Compass Rose opens and then on to the theater for Jamie’s next to last Sunday service.

There isn’t really much happening today, Terry has a lecture at 9:45am, “A Short History of Long (and Short) Canals -Featuring the Panama Canal.”  Dick goes to that. There is the refresher mid-cruise emergency drill at 11AM and that messes up the Quilling class. But there is a Pastry Demonstration by Chef Pascal at 11:15AM on “Shortbread Berries Cake.” Carolyn does go to that . The ship has the best pastries that we have ever had on any cruise. Chef Pascal is a marvelous Pastry Chef.

At noon the Captain tells us we are traveling at an average speed of 18.5 knots, the wind is at 20 knots with moderate seas of 7 feet and the ship is moving quite a bit so be careful walking around. We have 90% humidity so not only is it very overcast, it is rather miserable out side. He does say things should improve by later this afternoon. The Captain also says we will start our passage through the first lock of the Panama Canal at 8AM tomorrow after lining up at 6AM. We should enter the last lock at 2PM and be free by 3PM.

About 1:15PM we go down to the dining room for a lite lunch, onion soup for Carolyn and a Mexican rice and bean salad for Dick. After giving the idea of a Mexican dish from a Filipino kitchen the eye, he says it is actually good!

We spend the afternoon getting the blog posts up to date. Carolyn also planned to pack one of the big bags, but that when by the wayside when she lay down to read for a while!

We head to dinner at 6:30 minus a cocktail as there is no early music. Dick has rack of lamb and Carolyn eats lite with salad, baked potato and cold tiger shrimp. The kitchen is slow tonight and there are several new faces working the dinning room. Big T told us there were several new people in the kitchen also. Guess they have a few glitches to work out. A good number of the crew change over the next month before the ship heads back through the canal for its Northern Europe season.

Regent blew it big time today as there has been nothing to note it is Mother’s Day. In some ways, it feels like this segment is a step child of the World Cruise. There are not been as many activities as on the other segments.