World Cruise - Day 89 - Apr 10 - At Sea

Sunrise was again obscured this morning at the horizon.  I can't remember the last time it was clear at the horizon, so it must be 46 days ago or so.  Anyway, I kept coming out of the bathroom getting ready to see when the sun would pop and this was the first pic I was able to get of the visible sun in the morning as it broke through the haze:

We were discussing weight gain at dinner last night.  I don't think I've gained any weight (at least I don't think I have—I've actually taken in one notch on my belt) and I'm pretty sure Krissie hasn't either.  But on the last world cruise, quite a few people apparently had a problem with gaining weight.  I know the general rule of thumb with 7-day cruises is that you gain a pound a day.  That wouldn't work very well on a 107-day cruise.  You can't really weigh yourself on the scale in the spa while we are at sea, since it will vary by about 40 pounds depending on the pitch and roll of the ship.  So the only time to get an accurate reading is in port.  Krissie and I both weighed ourselves the day we got onboard, but we both forgot our weight (since it was more than 46 days ago).

We will be home in Bainbridge Island 3 weeks from today.  Although we have very much enjoyed this cruise, we are looking forward to getting home.  People are now asking the question: "Would you do another world cruise?"  My answer is: "If you mean would I do this world cruise all over again, the answer is yes.  If you would I do a second world cruise, the answer is probably no."  That said, we are looking forward to our 49-day South America cruise in January 2013.  Combined with our 7-day family cruise early in Jan 2013 and the 2 weeks in between, we will be gone 70 days on that trip (again missing most of Seattle winter, sigh…).  Speaking of Seattle winter, it is not nearly as bad as what some people are escaping on this cruise.  There are a lot of Canadians onboard, disproportionately based on population (which is about 1/10 that of the U.S.), probably due at least in part to the winter escape.  I guess we're snow birds of a different feather.  Although the term snow birds makes us sound like retired old people, so I guess we're not that.  We are for-a-season travelers and adventurers.  And that is why we likely will not repeat a world cruise.  We did it, for a season, but the next time there will be something else we will want to do.  Snow birds tend to migrate back to the same place each year.  For a season travelers are exploring different places at each opportunity.

I can see land in the distance on the starboard side of the ship and the sun is still toward the back right, so we must still have a basically northwest heading as we approach the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.  So I think that's Iran that I can see?  Yes, just checked the ship's position and we are at longitude 57º 05.090ʹE and latitude 25.5º 51.790ʹN, which puts us sitting in the Arabian Sea (actually in the Gulf of Oman) just off the coast of Iran, getting ready to enter the Strait of Hormuz.

Here are a couple of pics off the stateroom TV giving a visual of where we are in the world:

You can see the ship's position (white ship to the right of the two stars).  So we're actually turning the corner heading slightly north as we prepare to head into the Strait of Hormuz.

I love this pic.  If you follow the green line (our path), it makes it appear like we cut across overland for the last part of our journey.  I'm thinking duck tours.

You can see Bahrain (our next destination, will be there tomorrow) on the left and Dubai (can only see "Dub") in the center, we will be heading there on Thursday and Friday, then heading back out and around the Arabian peninsula to Oman on Monday.

There is a huge, massive structure off the starboard side of the ship that looks like an oil platform:

To put the size of that structure into perspective, that's an oil tanker to the left in the picture.  As we got closer, we could see that it wasn't an oil platform, but actually a ship:

I have no idea what the ship does, but you can see the wake behind it, as it is moving in the same direction as us.  Here is a closer up view as we pass it about a mile away:

The name of the ship is the CRS Hua Hai Long , which a quick Google search shows it as being a semi-submersible vessel belonging to COSCO Shipping Co., Ltd., the large international shipping company.  So apparently it can carry other ships.  Here is an image I pulled of what the ship actually looks like:

So that structure that you see in my pics above on the ship is not actually part of the ship, it's the load that the ship is carrying.  Interesting.  We had a speaker onboard (the reef pilot from Cairns) who talked about some of these massive ships, it's interesting to see one up close.

Krissie is painting again after not doing a new painting since before Sydney.  Here is a painting she did prior that I don't think I've posted yet:

That was from the day that the sea was like glass.  She did two paintings yesterday and today that she did from photographs.  The first one is from when we were in Fiji and someone took a picture of me on the beach:

Do those shorts make my hips look fat?  Don't answer that.

The next one is a still unfinished work that I wanted to take a photo of because I think I look like Mr. Magoo (although she did give me Popeye arm muscles):

She painted that scene from a photo we took when we went horseback riding in Nicaragua.  As a side note, Nicaragua is the only port we are repeating on our South America cruise next year, so we already have reservations to go horseback riding again with Blue and Jeremy.

I beat Wai at ping pong today, which is getting to be a pretty seldom event (he beats me at least 80% of the time, especially since he got his new paddle).  We have all started calling certain shots "a Dan" (after Dan Hesse) when it hits the net and dribbles over, unreturnable, or hits the edge of the table.  "Good Dan!"  Dan seems to be the master of those shots.  That's not a knock on Dan—you have to be in the general neighborhood of the net to get the net shot and in the general neighborhood of the edge of the table to get the edge shots.  Today we decided that if it's an "Oh, oh!" shot (requiring two exclamations rather than one), then it is "a Dandy"—an example would be when Dan hits a shot into the middle of the net, but the overspin on the ball carries it up and over the net and barely bounces, making it not only unreturnable, but a double exclamation.  We also decided that "a Wai" is when someone hits a huge roundhouse forehand slam past the other person (Wai's trademark shot).  "Nice Wai!" or Nice Dan!" or "Oh, oh!  That was a Dandy!"

The other day in Mumbai, Krissie saw a little girl and a little boy that were wearing gold medals, apparently given to them by someone from the Princess ship.  She and Jackie wanted a closer look, but the kids were very protective of their gold medals and covered them up.  So I know we're not supposed to be giving out money to the children (because it incents them not to go to school), but is it OK to give out my extra medals from ping pong to the kids?  I'm thinking of doing that tomorrow in Bahrain when we are in the old section of town.  Maybe bring some along when we are in Oman and Egypt as well?  I don't really want or need the medals, so I would just be giving them away anyway and I don't really want to load down my luggage for the trip home?  What do you think?  Is that a good idea or a bad one?

We got 14 out of 20 in trivia, 17 won it.  Here are the questions we missed:  The River Hans flows through which capital city?  Seoul (we said Berlin).  Salpingectomy is the surgical removal of what?  Fallopian tubes (we said spleen).  Arctic King, Saladon and Tom Thumb are types of which vegetable?  Lettuce (we said tomato).  Which country produces Jarlsburg cheese?  Norway (we said Denmark).  The restrictive medical condition apicondylitis is more commonly known as what?  Tennis elbow (we said mumps).  What color is a polar bear's skin?  Black (we said pink).

We are going through the Hormuz Strait and there are a lot of ships in the area, mainly oil tankers.  However, there have also been small boats approaching our ship and others.  Here are three that we just off our stern that we saw during lunch:

Not sure what they were doing or where they were going, but they looked like they were in a hurry.  Probably fishermen, we just tend to be wary of anyone coming anywhere near our ship.

Today we had the ship talent show for the passengers.  Here are a few photos from the show:

Pat Purello has been the star of the karaoke nights onboard.  She sang a Connie Francis song:

Shirley Myers did creative storytelling of a story about our Cruise Director, Brett:

Alex (the guy facing forward on the right) and Kirsten (woman on the right) are the dance instructors onboard and they did a formation and sequence dance with 7 other couples:

Arnold Danoff played clarinet:

Bob and Reesa did a free form dance and then did participative laugh yoga (a first for pretty much everybody in the audience):

Our resident astronomer, David Dodge, did a poem recitation:

I forget this guy's name, but he sang Pennies from Heaven:

And then our Zumba class closed the show with Fuego.  You can see Krissie, I am just off screen on the left side (that's my arm), Collette (our instructor) is just out of the shot on the right:

I love my new notebook computer that I bought right before this trip.  It's an Acer, bought it at the Microsoft Store and it has everything I want and need on it.  I especially like using the SD card reader to quickly transfer photos from my camera to my notebook.  It's small, sleek and lightweight, yet still has a full size keyboard.  Ideal for this trip.  And I like the built-in rotating desktop background, where I get to see a new photo every day or so.  Here is the one on my notebook today:

I would love to be able to take pics like that pic.  I love all of the wonderful detail of the frog.  You can even see the bloodshot lines in the whites of its eyes.  Love it.

I watched MI4 today (Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol) in our stateroom.  It was playing yesterday in the Casino Lounge on the big screen, but people where there 30 minutes ahead of time, so I just waited a day and watched it in the comfort of our room.  Good movie.  Classic MI plot, unbelievable stunts and down to the last second timing.  And it included scenes from Dubai (where we will be in 2 days), Mumbai (where we were 3 days ago) and Seattle (where we will be in 3 weeks).  I also watched Iron Lady about a week ago.  That movie was a truly great movie.  I've now seen two movies (Iron Lady and Warhorse) which should have won the Academy Award (in my humble opinion) over The Artist.  Yes, I also saw Moneyball and, while I enjoyed the movie (I read the book about 5 years ago), it was not as good as the other nominees.  I do like watching an afternoon movie, especially when the heat of the day and the broiling of the sun keeps me seeking cover.

I went to the spa after the movie and it's actually starting to cool down.  Temp is probably in the mid-70s, which we haven't seen for awhile.  Forecast high for tomorrow is 86 and a low of 77 (although it feels cooler than that already in the late afternoon).

Chuck said he saw an Iranian boat earlier today with a machine gun mount on the front.  He took a couple of pics of it, I will try to get them to include in the blog.

Entertainment tonight was Tom Briscoe, the comedian we saw a few nights back.  Funny guy:

I got a pic of the Iranian gunboat from Chuck:

Note the Iranian flag on the far side of the boat and the machine gun under the tarp.  Yes, folks, that is the Iranian Navy's finest.  God save the queen.

Tomorrow is Manama, Bahrain.  We plan to take the shuttle into town and spend our time in the old part of the city.  We will probably go into town with Dan and his grandparents, then possibly split off with Dan to do some other things, depending on what seems interesting when we get there.