February 21 through 27 - Cruising the Indian Ocean

We are sailing across the Indian Ocean for the next seven days.  Sea days generally all have a combination of lectures, entertainment and periodic special activities.  So this is just a compilation of significant events over the week.

February 21 – We took on a lot of new passengers yesterday so we are seeing more unfamiliar faces.  The most interesting lecture today was by John Stainton.  He was instrumental in launching Steve Irwin’s (Crocodile Hunter) career and he wrote a biography on Steve.  John’s lecture was filled with many early photos and film clips from Steve’s career. 

This evening’s entertainment was a concert by classical pianist Tomono Kawamura from Japan.  She was absolutely mesmerizing.

February 22 – Today we had a UN/EU Drug and Organized Crime consultant, a marine biologist and a meteorologist giving lectures on heroin trafficking, deep sea creatures and mapping ocean currents. 

February 23 – Today we had a second installment of the story of Steve Irwin’s life and a second lecture on the Middle East…extremely informative and a bit depressing.  This evening’s entertainment was Australian comedian Jeff Stevenson.

February 24 – Today’s lectures included one on the life and times of Winston Churchill, one on marine pests, and more on the drug trade.  This evening’s entertainment was a great Australian entertainer Derek Metzger.

February 25 – Today is the Oscar’s and Crystal live streamed the show in one of the show rooms.  They ran out the red carpet and had a giant statue of the Oscar to get everyone in the mood.  

We went to lectures on changing US policy in the Middle East and weather forecasting.  We certainly have a wide variety of lecture topics. 

We spent much of the afternoon working on travel plans for 2020.  Late afternoon we went to an encore performance by Tomono, the phenomenal pianist.  Then we headed off to dinner at the Italian Restaurant, Prego’s. 

Crystal has two professional dancers on board who teach dance and occasionally perform.  Tonight’s show featured them and their dancing is pretty amazing.  Beverly is pretty tiny and Curtis seems to throw her all over the place.  Great performance.

The skies were pretty clear tonight and our Cruise Director managed to get the captain to turn off the lights on the upper deck for a couple of hours so we could get better views of the night sky.  The Milky Way and the stars are so beautiful out in the open ocean where there is no light pollution.

February 26 – We saw a presentation the Ghosts of War, the last documentary filmed by Steve Irwin, and another presentation on the worldwide drug problem, this one on cocaine. 

Much of the day was spent relaxing around the ship.

Paul had the Almond cake for dessert tonight.  He had ordered it a few weeks back but we were so awestruck that we didn't get a picture of it.  Tonight we did.  The pile of white is a dome of cotton candy over the cake.  They poured a syrup over it and the mound just dissolved away into nothing.  The pastry chefs are very creative.

We skipped this evening’s entertainment.

February 27 – We are coming up on a couple of stops so we had a destinations lecture this morning on Mauritius and Reunion islands.  We also went to a very good presentation on the rise of Putin.  

Mary spent a little bit of time taking a few more pictures of the ship.  These are pictures of the Avenue Salon... 

and the Galaxy Lounge where all of the entertainment and many of the lectures are held.

This afternoon we had a concert by ship's guest who enjoy singing and who practice periodically on sea days.  The concert was only 15 minutes but was quite good.

The evening’s entertainment was a variety show featuring another show by the comedian Jeff Stevenson and singing by Toni Warne.  Tomorrow we set foot on land after 7 days at sea.