Wanderung 24

Spring Fling

From March to May 2011

Thursday, March 31: At Sea

Bob:

I think we both had some residual soreness from the zip-lining on Antigua, but we still managed to walk about 8 laps up on Deck 10. The Atlantica had a jogging track on Deck 11, but it was so small that we both felt it was useless for taking our morning walks. We had tried walking circuits on Deck 3, the promenade deck, but opening the heavy doors in the bow section and cutting across inside the ship somehow disturbed the rhythm of our walking. So in the end we settled on walking the loop on Deck 10, the sun deck.

The Deck 10 loop was much longer than the jogging track, almost as long as the loop down on the promenade deck. I never saw an official measure of how long any of these walking loops actually was, but we found that the Deck 10 loop took us just shy of 5 minutes per lap. If we were walking at our usual pace, that would suggest three or four-tenths of a kilometer per lap. The nice thing about walking on Deck 10 was, of course, the great view out over the ocean in all directions. We always walked early in the morning when the sunbathers were all still snug in their cabins, because later in the day the sun deck would be crowded with people using the deck chairs and essentially unusable for walking laps.

Since the Atlantica was as stable as a rock we did not get any noticeable "uphill" or "downhill" slopes on our walking loop. We did, however, expend noticeably more effort on the upwind side of the loop where we had to walk into an oncoming wind generated both from the ship's motion and from the Trade Winds that blew steadily against us as we were crossing from West to East and at this latitude the Trade Winds blow East to West. The ship's cruising speed was about 21 knots and I estimated the Trade Winds as generally at 5-10 knots, so we walked against a wind of at least 30 miles per hour and that is quite noticeable. But the wind also helped keep us cool, and the change from strong headwind to strong tailwind plus the incredible view kept the walking from getting too boring.

Monika:

A day at sea, what to do, what to do? First we had to move our clocks forward. Since we had only 5 sea days, every night we moved forward an hour. We first went on deck 10 for some walking, since exercise is supposed to be better at keeping our weight down if we do it before breakfast. After 40 minutes of walking I was ready for breakfast and enjoyed every bite.

Bob:

The one thing that Costa ships seem to have much more of than other cruise lines is arts and crafts activities. In fact, on the days at sea the Atlantica typically had both a morning and an afternoon session of some kind of arts and crafts. That day for the morning session we helped construct costumes out of various colors of crepe paper (I think). The costume we made at our table was the "Indian Chief" which had a basic toga-like surcoat combined with a headdress that simulated a feathered headdress if you kind of squinted your eyes and looked at it that way.

In the afternoon arts and crafts session we made our own outfits. I made a pirate outfit and Monika made a hula skirt and lei. That was fun, but since I didn't think we would manage to stay awake until the party, which started at 11:00 p.m., I wore my outfit, with a snorkel standing in for the pirate cutlass, down to dinner to show the folks at our table.

Monika:

This day was "Carnival" day, and the arts and crafts reflected that theme. I remembered from the other Costa cruise, that arts and crafts were always fun, so Bob and I both went. Sandy and Debbie from our table were also there, so we all worked together. In the morning we made outfits that other people would wear in the evening. Bob modeled the "Indian chief" outfit and our table made six of them. (of course, I forget to bring the camera, sorry).

In the afternoon, we made our own. Bob put the finishing touches on his pirate costume - and here I do have a picture - while I made a grass skirt and a lei type necklace for myself.

Bob:

Dinner held a special surprise, a chocolate cake for Tom and Debbie's wedding anniversary.

We did, however, stay awake long enough to attend the star gazing session on the rear section of Deck 9 out in back of the Botticelli buffet area, and afterward even attended the evening show. The star gazing was hosted by our multi-lingual cruise director, who was just amazing in spouting sentence fragments in Italian, French, Spanish, German, and English in rapid-fire succession. He could do that quickly enough that we were all kept in the flow of the presentation as he pointed out the constellations and the stars that comprised them with a green laser pointer.

Since he had the deck lights dimmed way down for the presentation and it was a crystal-clear night, all of us (I think about 200 people) could easily see the stars and constellations as he pointed them out. We were both lying back on deck chairs so we could view almost all of the sky above without getting a crick in our neck. There was a bit of interference from the smoke coming from the ship's funnel, but that just occasionally blocked a small part of the view. I enjoyed doing the star gazing "live", so to speak, rather than being inside a planetarium.

Monika:

Bob wore his costume to dinner, but I was not quite brave enough to go to dinner in a hula skirt. Dinner was the usual convivial affair. A pretty appetizer and for desert a very nice chocolate cake, since Debbie and Tom had their wedding anniversary.

After dinner we went to the postponed stargazing show, and it was well worth the time. They turned off the lights on the aft deck and suddenly you really could see the stars. Andrea had a laser pointer which really went way up in the sky, so you knew what constellation he was talking about. In his rapid fire, five language talk, he pointed out all the constellations and how you could find them if you start with Orion, since the 3 stars making out Orion's belt are easy to find. He also gave out some star charts, so we can go out and see what we can find. Of course, they aren't going to turn out the lights again just for us.

Bob:

The evening show was classical music from a pianist and violinist from Hungary, I believe they said. Aside from an occasional excursion into pop music, the 45-minute performance was truly classical although it emphasized the lighter, livelier numbers, e.g. Brahm's Hungarian Dances, the baccarole, etc. The violinist was truly good, and I was amazed at how she could whip off that performance for a solid 45 minutes with no breaks, and then come back an hour later and do it all over again. And so to bed.

Monika:

Since we were still up and awake afterwards, we went to the show. It was billed a Duo Summer, and turned out to be a violinist and piano accompanist. The stage was set up looking like St. Mark's Plaza in Venice and that was a beautiful backdrop. The violinist was really very, very good and played arrangements of Hungarian Dances by Brahms, the Turkish march by Mozart, Ave Maria by Gounod, and other pieces, most of them fast and furious. She must have been exhausted after 40 minutes of playing (and that twice) but as an encore she played the Radetzky march by Strauss and there were enough Germans to accompany it with the appropriate clapping of hands.


 

Copyright 2011 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Index
Prolog Map of Transatlantic Cruise Map of Drive in Ireland Epilog

March 2011
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31
April 2011
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
May 2011
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30 31

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