Another Full Day at Sea - Our First Full Day in the North Atlantic
Crossing the Equator yesterday put us in the North Atlantic instead of the South Atlantic.
Our cabin steward, Sugara, delivered certificates certifying that we had visited “Null Island” yesterday, making us “Emerald Shellbacks.” A similar certificate was delivered in January when we first crossed the equator:
Verity’s guest at this morning’s “Coffee Chat” was Toni Warne, a guest entertainer who is only with us until Tenerife. Toni was a finalist on the first season of The Voice UK, and she answered questions about what that was like. Although married with children, she must love singing on cruise ships, and why not? She sings two 45-minute sets in the course of one or two weeks at sea, then changes to another ship. (After two days in Tenerife, she will board the Viking Neptune for the remainder of the cruise to London.) She said that she did 37 different cruises in 2023!
We had four lectures today:
1) David Burgess spoke about Amerigo Vespucci, after whom America was named. He was the first navigator to identify South America as “the 4th continent.” It was named simply “America” until North America was identified later.
2) Mike Seigel spoke about “Pirates and Treasure Hunters.” Piracy has been around since Egyptian times, and Mike described the many locations in which piracy took place — very interesting! No mention of present-day Somali pirates, however, which we found curious. (By the way, in a recent coffee chat, the captain and chief engineer gave a limited description of the measures which the ship was prepared to take if we had gone through the Red Sea, near Somalia. The only specific: razor wire would surround the ship.)
3) Gavin W. Roser spoke about Africa’s 54 recognized countries, ending with a mention of Senegal, where we dock on Friday. That country had an election on March 24th. The new president and his number two were prison cell-mates six weeks ago!
4) Viv Lawes spoke on “The Lure of Africa in Western Art.”
Rita and I spent all our free time between those lectures streaming season 3 of Downton Abbey. Tomorrow we’ll stream season 4!
I did manage to squeeze in completion of my weekly “Real Estate Today” column, which was due by 6 pm our time at the Denver Post…. That and our Downton Abbey obsession explains why I didn’t flesh out the four lectures in today’s installment, although I did take pictures of all the slides…
Bye for now.