At Sea, Southbound

 Another sea day, as we make our way south from the Marquesas to the Tuamotu group. I have even less to write than previous sea days, because I have come down with a cold and so are even less motivated to participate in shipboard activities than normal. In fact we spent most of the day in our cabin, reading, with the french doors thrown open to let in some (humid) fresh air and the sounds of the sea. Ironically, now I'm sick anyway, the sea is surprisingly calm and there is only some very gentle ship movement, which is quite relaxing.

Our usual distractions were meals, the daily quiz (we're doing quite well, in a large part due to the people we have partnered with - one is an extremely irritating American woman, but she knows a lot, the rest are fine and a couple are from Sydney).

Our minibar is complementary, so each day Lynn raids it for the little bottles of various spirits, just leaving the bourbon and things we don't like. Then it is duly restocked and she's accumulating quite a load.

In the evening we went to the Spanish speciality restaurant. It's quite small and the meals are certainly spanish-inspired, but honestly I can't easily tell one cuisine from another. Anyway, it was very nice and we'll try to go again.

At Sea, Pitching and Rolling

Well we did almost nothing today. In fact I’d have nothing to write if it wasn’t for explaining how we came to do nothing. Which is simple, because it was rough.

It started getting rough last night around dinner time, which was a bit surprising because we were still in the Tuamotu archipelago and I thought that would give us some protection. But by today it was rough enough to make most things impractical. We’ve been heading north all day, to the Marquesas, and there ahs just been a constant wind and swell. Not a storm or anything like that, and the swell isn’t particularly obvious if you look out. But it’s enough that it is hard to get around the ship, particularly on stairs. And in corridors everyone lurches and moves with unexpected pauses. Lynn could have spent the day reading in the Yacht Club, which is the lounge on Level 8 at the bow, but the pitching was just too much for me. So we’ve read and slept all day.

Late morning we went up to the quiz – but it turned out that we’d forgotten to put our clocks forward a half hour so we’d missed the whole thing, which was very frustrating. We did manage to go to all meals, of course, and still enjoyed them.

And now we’re staying in watching a movie.

Breakast on the aft deck, before the seas picked up.