Jan
5
Last Days at Sea
Filed Under Panama Canal 2009
9:50PM EST
At Sea, North of Cuba
We are rounding out our last two days at sea before docking in Port Everglades (Ft. Lauderdale) tomorrow morning. The evening after departing Aruba, the ship held a top-deck party similar to the New Year’s Eve party. The parents had no interest in checking it out, so around 11pm, I went up top. I wandered around for awhile, observing people. I looked out to the surrounding darkness and saw a half moon shining above along with Orion. Far ahead of us on port side I could see another cruise ship burning with electric brightness. It made me wonder what it would be like to encounter a floating hotel in the middle of nowhere at night. If I were Nimo searching for P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way or Tom Hanks with his volleyball friend and suddenly came upon this multi-lit, multi-tiered building holding 2,800 people.
I finally made my way to a chair and sat for a bit. I then recognized two women who I believe we’d had dinner with during one of the very first few days. They recognized me and waved, so I got up and joined their dancing. When the song ended, they kindly invited me to join their table near the pool where their husbands were sitting. The four of them are from Wales and probably in their 60s (?). They had just ordered another bucket of beers and offered one to me. We all had a lovely chat plentiful with laughter. When I asked if they usually stay up this late, they said they tend to close the place down every night! We all called it a night around 12:30am, so I slipped quietly back into my room and soundlessly up into my bunk. Unfortunately, that led to my not getting out of my bed until noon. However! I finally saw the movie “Roman Holiday,” which was playing on the TV, and good ol’ “Overboard.” After a lethargic lunch, I spent a lethargic afternoon in the sun with a book and a nap. The evening time was spent by seeing comedian Cary Long and laughing a lot.
Today, I attended a lecture by Senior 1st Officer Paolo Ansaldi about the history of navigation and how today’s ships, including our own, are navigated. His talk made me want to start a career toward captaining my own large sea-going vessel someday! If only… I had thought that with today’s GPS, navigating a ship wouldn’t really be that hard, but indeed it is (duh). Instead of navigating a straight line from A to B, a sailor has to take into account the water’s current that moves the vessel from its straight course, so the line must be continually redrawn. Of course, with today’s technology, a ship’s computer system can be put on autopilot to do just that. After Paolo’s excellent (and humorous, especially with his wonderful Italian accent) talk, I stayed in the Princess Theater for a Q&A and behind-the-scenes tour with the ship’s production staff. If you’ve ever taken a tour of a theater before, then it’s the same on the Coral Princess, complete with a hydraulic stage, backdrops that are stored above the stage three floors up, and costume changes backstage.
The coast of Cuba could be seen off of our port side for most of the afternoon. I started a new book by the indoor pool and went in the pool and Jacuzzi a couple of times before meeting the parents and our now good friends John and Lydia (a lovely elderly couple from Canada, though she’s English and he’s Polish) for one last round of trivia with them.
This evening, after our final sit-down, multi-course meal, Dad and I attended the final trivia team challenge. We were one point away from winning, but I still had fun. Then Dad returned to the cabin to pack and put our luggage in the hall for pick-up (it’ll get delivered to the airport for us in the morning) while I stayed for the ship’s rendition of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” Since then, I’ve retired to the room to type this up. After posting this, I’m off to bed. Our disembarkation group meets at 7:50 in the morning after which we’ll be whisked off to the airport in Miami.
More photos to be posted in the next few days!
« previous post — next post »