Tuesday, November 12, 2019; At Sea -Rome to Santorini
Ben woke up to see lots of coastal lights and a light house flashing at 5:30am. We were transiting the channel between Italy and Sicily, with Messina, our originally scheduled port of call just out of reach. The sea conditions did not seem all that bad as local ferries were still busily running across the channel. Apparently the main concern of the Captain was that the weather was going to deteriorate in the Ionic Sea, between Sicily and Greece during the day, which would have made the crossing unsafe. So Ben went back to bed. We attended the port talk on Aqaba and skipped the morning trivia, which is very unlike us. Then Ben spent some time in the fitness center on an elliptical. It would have been impossible to run on a treadmill the way the ship was pitching in the rough seas. As the day wore on, the promised bad weather materialized and we were cutting through 70 knot winds with seas of 10-20ft. It’s a good thing this ship is nearly 1000’ long and over 100’ wide. Still, it made for some difficulty walking up and down stairs and negotiating the hallways.
Next, we attended a lecture on the Suez Canal. It was interesting to learn that the British had done just about every thing they could to discourage its construction since their empire stood to benefit from trade around the Horn of Africa. At one point, French surveyors had erroneously reported that the Red Sea was 30’ higher than the Mediterranean, but British surveyors knew that the two seas were virtually identical in elevation. That delayed the French by 10 years. It was also interesting to find out that some of the Suez Canal was dug out by slave laborers, something the British liked to point out since they had abolished slavery in their colonies by then. It was also interesting to note that the ancient Egyptians had created a canal between the Bitter Lakes and a tributary of the Nile which worked until it silted in.
We had a spot of tea followed by afternoon trivia. We played with Bob from our South America trivia team and were joined by a couple from Ventura, California. We ended up in a 3 way tie for first place, but lost the tie breaker, which was to guess how many times Ramsay Gordon swore during the first episode of Hell’s Kitchen n 2004. It was 111. We had guessed zero, thinking it might be a trick question, or that network censors would have bleeped out any swearing, but we were off by 111. The closest team had guessed only 43, so even they were way off.
Ben’s suit had not returned from the laundry service for pressing, so we skipped the formal night in the dining room and had pizza in the casual pizza venue in the Piazza. They used to have a variety of pastas, but now only offer a Caesar salad with or without anchovies, and a variety of pizzas. The pizzas were plenty for an individual meal.
We sat in the Explorer’s Lounge for a comedian/magician who was not particularly gifted, but just funny enough to make it worthwhile. Then we stayed for 60’s music trivia. We were joined by Linda and Paul from Houston and our prior Diamond Princess Cruise. We ended up with 37 points. The winners managed 41. We fortunately didn’t have to know the year of release for each song, although the host had suggested that, and a huge groan came from the audience, which vetoed his original plan.
We finished the evening by watching the late showing of the Princess Theater “Bravo” show, which showcases popular music from Musicals, Opera, and even some James Bond. We have seen the show many times before, but each ship has it’s own cast, and some are better than others. This cast was very good, and their guest soprano was excellent. It was a very enjoyable show.
Tomorrow we arrive in Santorini. We hope the worst of the storm will have passed by then, but the forecast is for rain, so we’ll see how that plays out.
