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At Sea, Wednesday March 5 ~ Panama Canal Cruise

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Weather Forecast:  Sunny High 81 / Low 77

Sunrise 6:32 am / Sunset 6:06 pm

From the Navigator: After passing the Santaren Channel, Coral Princess will alter to an easterly course as we enter the Old Bahama Channel, which lies between the Great Bahama Bank and the Northern coast of Cuba.  We will continue to follow the north coast of Cuba before rounding Punta Maisi at the eastern end of the island.  We will then pass through the Windward Passage which lies between Cuba and Haiti.

I woke up about 8:30 and took a shower in that tiny shower stall.  A removable head shower would be better in tight quarters like that.

Tom was reading on the balcony. He’d brought me coffee, a croissant, banana and yogurt.  Nice!

After a bit of me writing this, Tom napping, we went up to Horizon Court for real breakfast.  We almost always sat looking out the windows over the bow.  It was such a nice view.

our-table

We wandered around a bit and went to the Wheelhouse where I’d planned to join the Princess Pop Choir.  Tom was going to wait but ended up knowing all the songs so he’s singing with us, too 🙂

wheelhouse

We’ll have rehearsals every sea day and a final show the last night.  James, the leader, said we’d get special pins to wear.  Oooh!

Our songs, complete with choreography, will be:

Oh, What a Night

Waterloo

Isn’t She Lovely

It’s Not Unusual

We Are the Champions (might not be in the final show)

Sweet Caroline

We Will Rock You

We will be wearing black and white (where have I heard that before?!?) and our pins.

I have some black shorts with me but I didn’t think that they were performance-ready so when we were walking around later, I bought some black capris (and a *few* other things)

We talked to one of the young crew members, Hannah from Southhampton.  We’d seen her at the show last night.  Turns out she lives right up the street from James but they’d never met until this cruise.

After choir, we wandered around a bit, toward the atrium and into a couple shops (see black capris, above) , watched a bit of “Goofy Golf” and ran into some folks Tom knows (Jim and Rosie).  Goofy Golf consists of hitting a golf ball down a stairway with a right turn and hill at the bottom.  The ball was supposed to go into a plastic cup…eventually.

Back to the cabin for some reading and email, Then I decided to go out to a deck to read, instead.

We sat by the Lotus Pool for a while, then out on the deck.  I think I rested my eyes in both places.

lotus

It was formal night but I didn’t feel like going to the bother so we just got a bit more dressy, but nowhere near formal.

We ate in the buffet, anyway, and the main meat offering was roast lamb.  Yummy!

We were a bit early for the show, but there was a string trio playing in the Wheelhouse across the hall.  We went in there – they were playing Mozart, Vivaldi, Ravel, Strauss but the thing that got to me was when they played Astor Piazolla’s Oblivion.

Several years ago, Alice and I were talking about skating and I mentioned that several of the skaters were using the music of Astor Piazolla.  She’d never heard of him so I played some of his music over the phone for her.  She immediately fell in love with his Oblivion and ended up buying the music for herself.

I couldn’t believe that this little group was playing this, another reminder of my Alice.

There are several versions of Oblivion on YouTube, none with string trios, so I liked this the best since it showed off a violinist:

We went into the show in the Princess Theater – it was completely full – so we sat in the 3rd row.  It was wonderful.   The show was called What a Swell Party and featured music of Cole Porter – how can you go wrong? I was just amazed at the talent the singers and dancers have.

After the show, we went out to see what was running on MUTS.  It was the end of Jobs and we stayed for the rest of that and into the beginning of the next showing.

After getting a glass of ice water, we went back to the cabin.  A reminder that we change our clocks forward tonight.

Lots of promising activities tomorrow, including choir practice.

And, on TV tonight – Great Expectations.  I loved that book.  The movie (2012 version), not so much.

I read about a paragraph of mine (Pigeonwings) before I fell asleep.

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Day Four, Montego Bay, Jamaica – November 20

Jamaica

We were up fairly early this morning and watched the ship make good use of its azipods to dock next to the Star Taurus, a crude oil tanker.

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After that was successful, we went to the Garden Cafe for breakfast.

About 10:30, we went down to 4 and down the gangplank to check out a bit of Jamaica.  We were at the regular cargo pier (#2), so we took a shuttle over to the cruise terminal.

This terminal was several tacky shops but Tom got some postcards and I got a little bag for carrying my Kindle on deck.  He looked at watches in The Royal Store but didn’t buy anything.  They gave us a free Jamaica keychain for looking.  Whoopee!

We took the shuttle back and made good use of most of the other folks being on tours and such.  We had a hot tub to ourselves for over half an hour.

In a bit, a couple folks joined us.  One was a veterinarian and Tom told her about my Cushing’s experiences.  After about 45 minutes I got out to read for a while.  Then in the pool – salt water!  Who knew?

Tom thought I should go over and talk to the veterinarian but I said I was on vacation, not here to “talk shop” unless I found that Cushie-looking woman again.

We stopped by the Great Outdoors and had some coffee.  A yellow butterfly flew by but didn’t stop at our table.  It wasn’t as big as Alice’s butterfly, but I wondered all the same… How does a tiny thing like that fly up to the 12th deck of a ship?

I’ve been thinking a lot about Alice on this trip.  She would have loved this cruise, especially the Sea Days.  Looking all around at the vastness of the ocean, the beautiful clouds, sunsets, the moon.  I know her soul is out there, somewhere, in one of these beautiful things that God has created.

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Great Outdoors

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Great Outdoors

Back in our cabin, it was fun watching people hustle back to make the 3:30 all-aboard.  I got some shots of the ship just sliding out from the dock, parallel to it, instead of backing into the Star Taurus.  The folks on board that ship looked happy that we didn’t hit them, too.

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We bid a fond adieu to Montego Bay and head off into the sunset.

We tried the Garden Cafe for dinner tonight, too.  Pretty good – both plates worth!

The usual after-dinner deck stroll, then back to the cabin.  I was asleep by 9:00PM…and up at midnight doing my website chores and blog-writing.

We didn’t go to the show again.

Tonight’s towel animal was a lobster.

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Today’s Stats:

Wednesday, November 20th, 2013

Today’s Forecast:  Mostly Sunny 85F/30C

Sunrise: 6:22 am

Sunset: 5:34 pm

Arrival: 8:00 am

All Aboard: 3:30 pm