Today is the end of our sea adventure. This is always a sad time because it means saying good bye to friends new and old. Some we will meet again but most will become fond memories…heavy sigh. This is the hardest part of traveling.

Conner and Marcia from Seattle, WA, Lawrie and Lorraine our good friends from Canada, Carolyn from Charlotte, NC, and Guido and Chris from Belgium.

Jim and Lorraine from Scotland

Jodie and Bob from Florida

Tak and Nikiomo from Japan

Rod from Perth, Australia

Ineka from The Netherlands

Conrad from the Philippines and the best cabin steward ever.

Manilito our favorite bartender, comedian and singer.Christopher – our very favorite waiter on our last cruise and this one.

Kat and Sopa our massage therapists from Thiland

Herman, the amazing and hilarious Maître d’ of our dining room, with Lawrie and Lorraine.

And last but certainly not least our senior crew members:

Dominique –Head Engineer, Freddie – Sports Director, Renata – Cruise Director, Regina – Ship’s Doctor, Captain Sergey, and Anita – Hotel Manager.

All of them plus many more have made it another wonderful and memorable voyage.

Thank you and Bon Voyage to all,

Charli

Today marked the opening of the 2012 Fall Crossing Olympics – a grueling five day test of strength, cunning and agility. Four teams competed – Pink, Black, White, and Blue. I was the main cheer leader for the Pinks.

The opening event was deck volleyball played with a balloon (or many balloons since multiple were broken in the heat of battle) and sitting on deck. With the rocking ship and the wind, this event was much more challenging than it looked.  Despite one of the team members rolling over and bumping her head (rather hard – she was on the injured list for the next day’s events but recovered), the pink team took the gold in this first event.

Day 2’s event was a treasure hunt (Hey, it’s shipboard Olympics). There was a list of 15 questions that needed to be answered and the majority took running around the ship to locate the answers. Some of the questions included, “How many wenches on the foredeck?” and “Where is the Mermaid’s Purse?” Ineka, our friend from the Netherlands, is a natural born leader and headed Team Pink. She stayed on deck and managed the others sending each of the other members off to find the answer to the next question so that all worked as a well-oiled machine. The other teams were much less organized and Team Pink again took the gold.

Day 3’s event was Charades – boy, do they need lessons in how to play charades which really added to the hilarity.

Team Black took the gold for this event but Pink took silver.

Day 4 was the Water Balloon Toss. This event consisted of two members of a team using a beach towel to toss a water balloon

 to two other team members who caught it with a towel and then tossed it to the last two members. At least that was the way it was supposed to work.

This event, too, was much more challenging than it looked and only 1 time did a balloon make it clear around without bursting – Team Pink takes the gold again!

Day 5 The Spoon Dive and The Ball Grab!!!! In the first of the final two events, one female from each team was sent to the pool. Spoons were dumped into the deeper end, which is not really very deep as you can see, and the ladies had to dive and collect as many spoons as possible. Team Pink collected 13 and the next closest competitor recovered only 10 (Yea, Pink).

The final event for the male team members, The Ball Grab, was by far the most entertaining event in the competition.  One guy from each team was in the main pool. Ping-Pong balls were then dumped into the pool and the guys were to collect as many balls as possible before the ending bell. Please, note that they were not given anything in which to collect the balls. This was a heated and hilarious affair and rather suggestive as you can see.

The end results were that Team Pink took first place all-around thus winning the 2012 Fall Crossing Olympics!!!! We celebrated with Champaign, cake

and high fives all around! 

Today we took part in a very important ceremony– The Neptune Festival. This ritual is a time honored tradition and is held to ensure safe passage on our voyage (maybe we should have held it at the beginning during the hurricane… just a thought). Anyway, during this ceremony volunteer passengers (I volunteered to stay safely out of the way and take pictures) and crew sacrifice themselves to King Neptune and his queen. Neptune does not allow just anyone to pass safely through his waters. He demands acknowledgement of his power and sovereignty over the sea and so a grand costume parade is held on the sun deck with much pomp and circumstance. Those who are to be sacrificed are lead around the deck and then forced to kiss the fish (I’m not sure why) they then kiss the hand of Neptune and are dipped in the cleansing pool (also known as the swimming pool). It was a huge ordeal but in the end was a successful endeavor.  We ingratiated ourselves to Neptune and were allowed to safely continue our voyage. Then we all went and drank to our success.

Now that the skies have cleared, the seas have calmed, and the activity level of the passengers has picked up again, “What? “ You might ask, “Do you do all day long on a ship in the middle of the ocean.” The answer is, “Lots!”

Our day usually begins with a trip to the bridge to check on the night’s progress, the current speed of the ship , whether we are under sail or (heaven forbid) having to use the engines, and of course to make sure the captain has us going in the right direction.

Some days we are up before the sun and then we watch enthralled by the quietly beautiful sunrises –

 “Mornings at seven, the grass is dew pearled. God’s in his heaven all’s right with the world.”

Once we have made sure all is right with our world, Tom heads for his computer time – internet access is very difficult and if you have any hopes of getting on, it will be early before most passengers are up. I head for Tai Chi with Captain Sergey (Sare-gay).

Our captain is multi-talented – martial arts, Tai Chi, plays acoustical guitar, sings, as well as being an excellent sailor with a PHD in maritime physics. He is also very friendly and loves to sit and chat with the passengers. Anyway, he leads Tai Chi at 7:15 each morning.

Then I join Tom for a quick 2 – 3 mile jaunt around the sun deck. I probably should say “around and around and around the sun deck since one lap around is a tenth of a mile so it takes 20 to 30 laps.

Storms are often visible on the horizon and occasionally we are delighted by distant rainbows as we walk.   

After working off some of the calories that we are about to consume, we head down to breakfast where we eat and chat with different people each day. We now have friends from Australia, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, England, Canada, Scotland, Japan,.., so there is a lot of chatting to do.

At ten there is usually story time by the captain or one of the officers.

Story time is usually true tales of the sea – rogue waves, hurricanes, methane sea bubbles; or the physics of sailing –square rigs versus triangular sails, the mathematics of hull length to ship speed, really pretty interesting stuff.  

After that Tom and I head up to the bowsprit and the widow maker for some net time.

Lying in the netting watching the clouds and the waves go by, listening to the power of the ocean and feeling the rocking of the ship, the warmth of the sun and the cool breezes – it doesn’t get much better than this.

After lunch there is reading/chatting/blogging time in the piano bar or sun time on deck. There is usually some activity at 2:00 – mast climbing ,

  the Clipper Olympics (a fierce 5 day event), the Neptune Festival (very bizarre).(More about these later.) 

At 3:30 we go to the forward lounge for Joe’s (a passenger on our voyage who is a retired history professor and an expert on Columbus) 4:00 lecture on the voyages of Christopher Columbus. I know, it sounds pretty boring, but was fascinating enough to get there half an hour early each day in order to get a good seat. There was not one day of the twelve lectures that didn’t have a full house. The lectures were really very interesting and the fact that we were sailing pretty much the same route that Columbus sailed added to the intrigue.

After the lecture Tom was off to sun and read and I usually found a quiet spot to do yoga.

6:00 –Some evenings the timing is right to catch the sunset. As the sun sinks into the ocean, a peace settles over the ship – breath takingly beautiful. 

Time to get cleaned up so that we can go again to eat and commune with our friends – another 1 to 1 ½ hour session of eating and conversation. A great way to learn about the world we share with such a variety of people.

After dinner there are usually evening activities, but they start at 10:00 and since our mornings start around 6:00AM we usually head up to the bridge to sit, rock and watch the star filled sky for a bit before calling it a day. Sleep comes quickly with the dark cabin, the sound of the ocean outside our porthole, and the rocking of the ship.

Good night,

Charli