Today's view from the ship.....hope you like fog
The Cunard Welcome Painting made up of all tiny little paintings. The theater
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Travel Information: 6:35AM Day 2 of the TransAtlantic Crossing
Wind 9 knots SW Gentle Seas: Slight
Position: 50.47N and 23.19 W Speed: 24.9 knots
Temp. 63.5 Barometer: 29.9 Falling Humidity 90%
Weather partly cloudy with occasional showers
Southampton 899.2 New York 2233.9
We turned on the tv to the captain’s log to check our lives…..much to our surprise it said that it was 5:37 AM, not 6:37 AM as our watches and alarm clock said. Okay, we know we are not nuts, nor have the brain cells warped. We do question, however, our ability to tell time, set clocks, and the reality of the world. We wait for a repeat…oops! It still says the same….We decide that perhaps we really have lost it. Wait a minute…the UTC time and ships’s time do not match. They should be one hour apart, not two. We continue to look…all of a sudden the time changes and our belief in our sanity is restored and our children are safe from having to deal prematurely with two dottering parents. We won’t discuss the fact that the captain’s log seems to think that sunrise is 8:32 AM. They are only three hours off.
Coffee and muffin delivered at 7 AM What a wonderful practice. Perhaps we could start a business that delivers morning coffee and muffins to the house. Clean up, pack up and off to breakfast for the next best experience….the seating and the placement of the napkin in the lap by very nice young people working to meet my every possible desire. Juice, coffee, and a leather bound menu with lots of choices for breakfast—what more could you possibly want.
The day ended yesterday in heavy fog…yep, the fog horn goes off every 10 minutes or so. The day today began in heavy fog. So the view from Deck 11, the Atlantic Room in the bow of the ship was not totally exciting unless you like to pretend that you are in the GOMA in Glasgow staring at the wonderfully white canvas posing as art. One of the problems of fog is there is no horizon for those of us who like to use the horizon as a grounding source. The seas are at moderate height today with a wind speed of 19 knots across the bow and a ship’s speed of 25 knots, for a combined wind speed of 44 knots across the deck….it creates some movement….and no horizon to ground my head. It’s a good thing that bridge class was so much fun because my head and stomach were not happy campers. Fortunately that corrected itself quickly after leaving deck 11.
Our bridge partners today were a woman and her granddaughter, aged 11. Let’s see what did we find out about them. Glad the woman isn’t my grandmother….no warm fuzzies there. The lady informed us that she played bridge, but her granddaughter had two things to accomplish while on the voyage from Southampton to New York and back to Southampton. She must learn to play bridge, and she must study for the Level 5 piano exam. We learned that grandma was a retired secondary drama/humanities instructor, played the accordion, and was very smart so she told us…actually, she told me her whole family was very smart. Her daughter-in-law is an American married to her son, so the granddaughter holds dual citizenship and is very smart as well, as is her whole family. The parents are musicians and play in small groups and teach and both are incredibly talented. You get the picture. All I know is that if I ever behave that way toward my grandchildren I hope they kick me in the shins……
We took a wee break in our room before heading to the second lecture on piracy. Again it was quite enjoyable and filled with information about people quite unlike Johnny Dep.
Lunch time---American hamburgers and fries today. It is really pretty fun to sit on 7th deck in the windowed areas, eat lunch, and watch the fog..sea.
We continued our work of identifying pictures. We have so many pictures that we have been trying to identify them before we forget what they are. We did a few more pictures. When we started today the last pictures we had identified were the ones from the Highlands. We decided to go for a walk around the deck because we could actually see a ways from the ship. It looked like it might actually clear up. The deck was drying out…..walk time. We took the computer down to our room, got jackets and came back up to find the thick fog bank back in place and a wind that just took our breath away. We decided that we would go back in where it was a bit warmer. We went down to our room for awhile before dinner.
Tonight was the Black and White Ball. Dress up in formal clothes and all of that. One of the bad things about the trip….having to wear pantyhose. Dressing up isn’t bad, even a lot of fun, it’s just the pantyhose bit. Dinner was great. Our dinner partners tonight were Gloria and Phil, a retired teacher and an accountant who worked for a number of labor unions. They live in Great Neck on Long Island. Our other dinner companions went to the Italian night on Deck 7 in the Piazza Restaurant.
After dinner we went to the theater again. The presentation tonight was Nicolo Lobos. She is a violinist who won the Best Young British Musician award, studied at Juliard, and travels all over the world doing concerts. Her goal was to present a variety of musical genres and techniques. She play everything from classical to jazz and country and western. Obviously she is a very talented young woman. The theater was full again. It was a great evening at the theater. It is really fun to see everyone dressed in their evening clothes.
After the play we continued our quest to see how long we can make a dollar last in the slot machine. Tonight we played a penny machine called Box cars. Our dollar lasted quite a while, but like all gambling, eventually the house wins.
We took ourselves off to our room. Again we gain an hour. We have five to gain between Southampton and New York.
Steps 7865
Travel Update: 10:02 PM
Humidity: 100% Temp 62.6 Weather: fog
Wind: SW Force 5 19 knots across the deck
Barometer 29.9 Falling Seas: Moderate 4 to 7.5 feet
Speed: 24.6 knots Position: 50.17.67 N 33.11.34
Southamption 1278.1 New York: 1854.9
No comments:
Post a Comment