At sea - somewhere

Well, we are just about halfway through our sea-days.  We are sitting on the Promenade Deck, watching out for the pirates.  Actually we are at the end of the Red Sea and approaching the narrow stretch of water between Somalia & Eritrea.  It is very hot (34 degrees at 10.00) and quite humid.  Fortunately there is a small breeze generated by our ship.

We have a pretty standard routine on sea days.  We generally wake up about 7.00, order a cup of tea, get up etc and head to breakfast by 8.00.  We much prefer breakfast in the dining room as not only ate we served & have "controlled" portions, but it gives us the opportunity of meeting other passengers, as we are always "happy to share", as our Italian Head Waiter greets us.  As an aside, while a large number of our waiters are from India, today we had Elena from Ukraine.  The American couple opposite were complementing her on her English and she said that she is an English interpreter, with a Masters degree from US.  She finishes her current assignment in December (when the ship is in Tahiti) and then fly's home to winter in the Ukraine. Pretty extreme climate change.

After breakfast, it's deck time.  There are very few on deck down here, so have no trouble getting loungers.  11.00 is time to go into the cafe and have our lattes.  They know how to make a decent coffee in the cafe and we have them trained to make it hot. 
Lunch, once again in the main dining room and then Vivian has her bridge at 2.00.  4.00 we meet up for formal afternoon tea and before we know it, it's time to get dressed for dinner, which is at 6.00.  A show sometimes after that and off to sleep, ready for another day.

The ship is lovely and traditional, with everything close at hand.  The shows are great and being a smaller lounge, are more cabaret style.  Food is of course great, but I am down to 2 courses now & only 1 at lunchtime.  The beauty of this sauna environment is that I reckon the weight is pretty stable.  Our dinner companions from Canada are retired teachers - David was a maths teacher and his wife is not very well.  The other couple, Margaret & Norman are from Perth.  Norman is a homegrown magician/illusionist and has us both amused and bewildered.  Both couples are great company and it is s pity that they will be leaving the ship in Singapore.

Continual maintenance goes on, and they are just re-varnishing the handrails, so I think we'll go in for coffee a bit earlier today.