Friday, April 1: At Sea: Mandatory Buoyancy Tests!
Bob: The arts and crafts project of the morning was painting hats and we were both intrigued by that, so after breakfast and walking 10 laps on Deck 10 we located the dining area that had been converted to a painting parlor by the simple expedient of throwing red-and-white gingham checked tablecloths over the dining tables. The hats provided by Costa were really rather nice cotton baseball cap type hats with an adjustable headband. The color was a pure, plain white, which made the hat a blank canvas for each of us aspiring artistes! Monika and I, as usual, pursued different and quite idiosyncratic strategies. I pursued a nautical motif and painted waves on the crown just above the bill of the cap, then a sailing sloop riding on the waves, and above it all a big pair of eyes looking down on the scene. Debbie, who was working with us, also thought it looked a bit like a duck with a big fat nose, so I suppose my inner duck might have been peeking out of my artistic soul even though I was trying to draw a sailboat! The curious thing is that just drawing that simple design on a white background took me about an hour. In the same time, Monika had covered entire front of her cap and bill with a tropical scene complete with vivid palm trees, ocean, and even a tiny sailboat. Her hat was far more artistic, but mine certainly looked goofier so I guess we each ended up with the hat that matched our personalities! |
Monika: It seems that every cruise line has different ideas for "At Sea" days: Royal Caribbean fills the days with lot of sports and dancing, Princess and Holland America emphasize educational lectures, and Costa seems to do a lot of arts and crafts. Costa does arts and crafts especially well, and actually have a member from the cruise staff designated to plan and organize the crafts. I remember from our Baltic Sea cruise on the Costa Mediterranea (Wanderung 18), that we got to paint masks and t-shirts. So when today's craft was hat painting, both Bob and I both went. We thought that it was maybe a paper hat, but no, it was a nice all-white baseball cap that was our canvas. Our caps ended up completely different with Bob's turning into a whimsical, but very exact, ship with eyes and purple eyebrows, whereas mine was a landscape with water and a ship in the foreground and a forest with flowers in the background, in a water-color impressionistic way. |
Bob: Around 11:00 we experienced one of the most elaborate April Fool's jokes I have ever heard of. Back in Antigua the ship's daily "Today" program had informed us that Spanish authorities had boarded the ship and were going to give "buoyancy tests" to the passengers during the passage across the Atlantic ocean. On the daily program for April 1st, the order was that we had to put on our swimsuits and life vests and assemble at the pool on Deck 9 at 11:00. I thought it was a hoax but when we showed up without our life vests we saw several uniformed officers taking room numbers at a table and we were sternly told to go back to our stateroom and retrieve our vests, which Monika did. Then we donned the vests, signed in, and were guided to the pool. I held back as I still had the camera and didn't want to expose it to salt water, but Monika went to the edge of the pool with about 30 other passengers. Two of the officers carried one of the inflatable lifeboat capsules to the edge of the pool and then inflated it. It truly was one of the ship's official 12-person life rafts and it was interesting to see how quickly it inflated. A young crew member with her life vest on then jumped into the pool and demonstrated the correct way to climb aboard the life raft when entering from the water. Then we were all commanded to do the same and Monika, who was in the first group, enthusiastically jumped in and swam over toward the raft. And then, finally, came the laughing announcement over the loudspeaker of "April Fools!!!" It was all in good fun, but the amount of work and number of personnel to set it up took it way out of the range of the normal, run-of-the-mill April Fool's jokes. |
Monika: After the arts and crafts it was time to join the fun for the rather elaborate April Fool's joke the ship perpetrated. It started a couple of days ago, when the" Today", the ship's daily program, mentioned that 5 Spanish officials had come on board to administer the obligatory swimming test while we were crossing the Atlantic. In today's "Today", we were told that all passengers were required to appear by the pool at 11:30 in swimsuits and with the swim vests. At 11:30 they even announced over the PA that all passengers should come to the pool with life vests for the mandatory swimming test. Of course, the thought of having 2000 odd passengers crowding the pool area was already amusing. We decided to play along, put on our swimsuits and grabbed the swim vests and went up to the pool deck. There they had tables set up with guys in uniform, where everyone with swim vests checked in by cabin number. Most people were just milling around. But the swim vested ones, including me, got to sit on the side of the pool and watch an officer open up and deploy one of the life rafts. Then we got to get into the water and try to climb into the raft. After that they yelled "April Fool" and we all laughed. I really enjoyed it and thought it was one of the more elaborate jokes I have seen. Since we were already in our bathing suits, we went for a swim before lunch. |
Bob: That afternoon I relaxed while Monika went to the afternoon arts and crafts and made a very nice beaded necklace. Meanwhile, I finally fell asleep so soundly that I slept right through the dinner time and into the evening. Monika kept me company so we both missed dinner that night, but given the way we had been eating up till then, it didn't hurt either of us! |
Monika: After lunch and a rest, I went to the next crafts session, jewelry making. Every table got plates with large and small glass beads and some jewelry string. Jimena, our arts and craft "Animator", showed us a really nice design and we all picked the beads we wanted to use. I was at the table with Sandy and Debbie from our dinner table and we had a really good time working together. I made a rather colorful necklace, while they made somewhat more subdued bracelets. When I got back to the room Bob was asleep, so I just sat down and started reading, after all I had a good book to finish. Around 5:45 Bob opened one eye and I asked him, whether he wanted to go to dinner. He grunted something and turned over. Well I figured, both of us could miss a meal without problem and so I hung the "Do not disturb" sign on the door and kept reading until it was time to go to sleep. Bob just kept sleeping. All the time changes must finally have gotten to him. |
| Index |
| Prolog | Map of Transatlantic Cruise | Map of Drive in Ireland | Epilog |
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