Day 46: 20231108 Wednesday, November 8, 2023- At Sea on the Indian Ocean
There was an announcement yesterday morning that there were reports of respiratory illnesses around the ship and a reminder to use good hygiene and for susceptible individuals to wear masks in crowded areas. We have noticed several staterooms with small tables blocking the entrances including 3 or 4 in a stretch on the Caribe deck. There is one on our deck at a handicap accessible cabin. So there may be some Covid making its way round this ship. Some people are now masking in the theater and elevators, and people have noticed a conspicuous absence of the Captain from the Captain's Circle receptions. We are hoping he is just busy driving the ship and not sick.
We missed winning the morning trivia by one point so another team walked away with beer cozies. Did you know that Barbie grew a belly button in 2000? Ben hit the gym while Janet hit the pool after trivia, and we spent time relaxing in the covered pool area midships which is air conditioned and protected from drafts.
The cruise long progressive trivia picked up again this afternoon. We got beat by 2-1/2 points, but we fortunately still have a small buffer on our lead. We will need to bring our A game tomorrow to avoid getting knocked off the top. Australians have a colloquialism called Tall Poppy Syndrome where people like to disrespect the achievements of others, so we’re probably the target of a fair bit of Tall Poppy Syndrome. But we have been spreading our winnings around a bit since we don’t need more coasters and string bags.
The Princess Theater production was called Motor City, featuring Motown. The vocalists on this cast aren’t as talented as the cast on the Grand Princess, but the show is still better than watching reruns on TV.
After the show we met up with some members of our trivia team to do the 70’s ad 80’s music trivia. Mick is a musician who has done the karaoke and was in a band in his younger days, as well as a volunteer DJ for a local radio station. So he is our music savant. We ended up just one point shy of winning but were surprised to have known most of the songs. As we headed back to our stateroom for the evening, we saw the comedian Wayne Deakin in the Universe lounge so we dropped in and he was a lot funnier than last night’s comic in the theater.
Tomorrow is another day at sea. The temperatures are dropping noticeably as the ship is heading south with the temperature reading 76˚F at 10pm. The humidity is still 88% but we have actually turned up the thermostat in our stateroom so it is no longer on maximum cooling. The humidity and haze in the air has so far managed to obscure viewing of stars at night so we still haven’t seen the southern cross. At this latitude, the cross appears nearly upside down and right at the horizon, so if there is any mist over the sea, it obscures it. We are still hoping to see the Southern Cross constellation when we spend a night on land at Uluru as part of the next cruise land tour portion.
