Sunday, March 18, 2018- Cruise Day 54; At Sea

Sunday, March 18, 2018- Cruise Day 54; At Sea

We turned our clocks back an hour last night.  The weather and seas are beautiful.  We have birds that seem to enjoy riding the air currents created by the bow of the ship.  They actually rise up on the air currents parallel to the balconies, and work their way up to the bridge.  Then they peel of to the side, sometimes diving into the water for a bite to eat, but more often they skim the surface of the water just ahead of our wakes, and then work their way back up the air currents again.  Yesterday the birds were predominantly white with black on the tips of the wings and tails, and a bright yellow beak.  Today, the birds look very similar, but are brown all over, except for the bright yellow beaks.  

We had a leisurely breakfast in the dining room and then attended the 5th installment of the Progressive Trivia with Santa’s Helpers.  We didn’t know how many strings a harp has, or how many countries Queen Elizabeth II is head of state for, and we couldn’t come up with rhythmic gymnastics as the second Olympic sport besides syncronized swimming that is women only.  We scored 9/12.  Our Nemesis, the Motley Crew scored 10/12, so they are back to 1 point ahead of us.  There is also one team that is nipping at our heels just 2 points behind us.  

Entered another Effy drawing, but didn’t win.  Then another store on the ship was having a drawing for attending a talk on Larimar jewelery, so we entered that as well, but didn’t end up winning there either.  We thought our odds were pretty solid because there was fewer than 10 people at that talk, but we still failed.  Darn probabilities.

After lunch and a trip to the fitness center, we did the afternoon trivia, but another team sniped our usual seats, so we had to improvise seats in front of the lounge.  We scored 21/26.  The winners managed to score 23/26.  

We had dinner in the dining room and then attended the Showtime Vocalist Noybel Gorgoy, who is from Cuba, but who now lives in Las Vegas.  She did a show with Santana and Miami Sound Machine songs, which were OK but she ended up talking a lot about growing up in Cuba, and how important music is to Cuban culture.  Her best songs were sung in Spanish, and she did end up speaking a lot of Spanish, even though there were probably fewer than 12 people in the audience who volunteered that they spoke Spanish.  

The were having a Panama Festival of the World party in the Explorer’s lounge, but that turned out to be just a band playing more Miami Sound Machine and Santana music.  

We hit the ice cream counter on the way back to our room to retire early.  We arrive at the Panama Canal tomorrow morning, passing under the Bridge of Americas at 6:20AM, so we’ll have to set an alarm to get up in time to watch it from our balcony.