Day 6
December 4th: At Sea
Bob: Having had a decent night's sleep, I was ready to start bringing my journal up to date, and I started that process right after breakfast followed by a two-mile walk on the upper promenade deck on the Coral Princess, Deck15. We were rained on in the middle of our walk, but it was, as they say, a warm rain and just enough to be refreshing rather than soaking. We were surprised to see what looked like a hawk making lazy circles over the ship while we were walking. He perched on the lamppost of the upper deck just as if they were the branches of dead trees on land, and he seemed to be eyeing some of the sea gulls for breakfast, but I never saw him pounce on one. While I was still being distracted by the hawk, Monika spotted a pod of dolphins just off the side of the ship. They seemed to be excited by the ship and swam alongside while leaping in the air. Monika even saw one make a complete somersault, which was impressive. |
Monika: After three "land" days it was nice to have an "at sea" day to rest up from all this activity. We started the day off by walking around the sundeck, deck 15. It allows you to walk all around the ship on nice non-slip cork and outdoor carpeting. It was not under roof like the walk on the promenade deck, so you don't want to walk on deck 15 when the sun is beating down, but in the morning it was quite pleasant. Despite the ship's forward motion we felt hardly any wind, and it actually sprinkled a little during the walk. We were not too far from land and had several frigate birds accompanying the ship. But then we saw a bird, that definitely did not look like a gull or frigate bird. To both of our astonishment we finally agreed that it was a hawk. Of course, cameras were brought out, and he actually accommodated us by landing on one of the lightposts only to fly away when someone came around the corner. I can't imagine what he was looking for, but he was very pretty. While Bob was still trying to take hawk pictures, I looked out at sea and saw something splashing. Now the sea was very calm, no white caps. So anything splashing must be alive And as I looked closer I saw dolphins cavorting out at sea. One did an actual back flip and several came up jumping alone or in pairs. My new camera has only a 3x zoom, so I left the photography to Bob with his 10x, and he did indeed get a few nice dolphin pictures. What a pleasant way to end our walk. |
Bob: After resting a bit we attended a line dance class in the Universe Lounge at the rear of the ship. It was fun learning new dances and it was also a really pleasant way of getting some more exercise without working at it, so to speak. We cooled off by attending a Special Interest Lecture on the Panama Canal. Mr. Robert Raincock, the lecturer, gave a very thorough and surprisingly funny lecture on the history and details of the construction of the canal, which was a supremely difficult enterprise. I had not known, however, that Charles V of Spain was the first person to propose a canal across the isthmus of Panama. Of course that was in 1525 or so and he proposed a sea-level canal that was never even really started, but still he at least had the idea frist. Of course, after the French went bankrupt trying their hand at it, Teddy Roosevelt finally got the U.S. to actually complete it. The lecture lasted for well over an hour, so I didn't have the time to try the "Scrapheap Challenge" after lunch, as intriguing as that sounded to an old junk collector like myself. Monika trotted off to the art auction and right after she left I walked to the door just as she walked back in the door, and it turned out that she wanted to ask me if she could bid up to $50 on something she liked, just as I wanted to tell her to go ahead and bid up to $100 on whatever she wanted. Those "read each other's mind" occasions are just weird, but I suspect a lot of long-term (I almost said "old") married couples have the same experiences. At least I hope they do because otherwise we're just plain weird. |
Monika: At 10:00 we went to line dance class, where we reviewed the last one from the previous class and then learned two new dances. We were told that this evening at 9:15 was a country and western evening where we would do all the dances we had learned. Since this was not too late for us we decided to go. Right after line dance class we went to a port lecture on the Panama Canal. The lecturer made the history of the Panama canal very interesting with nice historic pictures. It really was a tremendous feat of engineering. After lunch I went again to the art auction. They did not serve champagne, so I decided to call it quits after about half an hour. Besides, there really was nothing I wanted to spend money on. |
Bob: After Monika left I started bringing my journal up to date. As it turned out, Monika didn't find anything worth bidding on at the art auction and was disappointed that no free champagne was offered, so she shortly returned and we spent the rest of the afternoon trading off working on the computer. We had dinner in the Bordeaux Dining room and watched "Gigi" on our cabin's TV until it was time to go to the Country Western Hoe-Down Dance Party at 9:00 p.m.. After all, we had taken the lessons and since they were kind enough to schedule the dance early in the evening, I wanted to be sure to put some of our lessons to good use. I did fairly well on the dances we knew except for one dance when I got turned around and managed to collide with Monika, who was dancing in my line to my left, and then hit the young black woman who was dancing on my right kind of on the rebound, so to speak. Sometimes I think my feet should be registered with the police as lethal weapons! One curious thing was that we kept losing our seats whenever we stood up to dance a number, so we progressively had to take seats farther and farther back from the dance floor as the evening progressed. But still we had lots of fun and it was nice to be able to take advantage of some of the live entertainment at last before we were once more off to bed. |
Monika: After dinner we were wondering how to stay awake until the country and western evening. I flipped through the channels on the tour and ran across the old standby "Gigi" with Maurice Chevalier and Leslie Caron. I always have enjoyed that particular movie, so the time passed in nothing flat. The hoedown was a lot of fun. Knowing the line dances was a great help, since at the dance they only went through the steps once and even that was done quickly. But with having practice just a few hours earlier, we both had a great time. What fun! |