Monday June 10 – At Sea

We now have Sudan on our port side and Saudi Arabia on the starboard side as we continue up the Red Sea.  People spend their days playing deck quoits, carpet bowls, table tennis, basketball, bridge, mahjong, trivia and bingo.   Some people spend their time shopping on board.  Some participate in making origami and other arts and crafts and there is always live music to listen to in several different venues.   Some swim in the pools, chat in the spas and sunbake on the decks.  Deck 7 is good for walking as you can go the whole way round reasonably protected from the wind created by the movement of the ship.  Three times round is one mile.  I have been doing several circuits of this deck each day in preparation for the walk involved at Petra as well as part of my daily exercise routine.  Bill started off in the gym but seems to have petered out a bit. Bill here : Yes, but I do Ballroom Dancing, Line Dancing and Choir each day) Speaking of Choir, how do these sound for a performance: See if you can sing the first line of each: Getting to Know You, You’re Sixteen (changed to You’re Sixty!), When I’m Sixty Four (changed to Ninety Four!), Suspicious Minds, Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, Burning Love.

I went to a talk by the Staff Captain, Paolo Ansaldi, this morning on navigation at sea.  At the end of his talk, the Captain came on the stage and answered questions posed by the audience.  I was a bit disappointed that most of these questions involved pirates and pirate ships.  After the talk, I was going for coffee with Bill when we bumped into the Captain.  He stopped to have a chat.  He is extremely personable.

We spent another enjoyable evening with Donny Ray Evins.  This time he sang Motown and Soul songs.  Sunset over the Red Sea tonight had a sand haze about it.

I have just finished reading Milkman by Anna Burns.  It took me a while to get used to her style as instead of calling people by their names she refers to individuals as Somebody McSomebody, Maybe boyfriend, etc.  Place names are such as over the water, the ten minute zone, etc.  It is a very interesting book about the problem in Ireland in the nineteen-seventies.  In keeping with this style, I now secretly call one of the men at our table Mr. No,No,No.   Questions such as “Did you enjoy the entertainer last night?” elicit a “No, no, no” response.  The sky is black tonight will be greeted with “No, no, no, it is really white.  It is just an illusion.”  He is really quite humorous and we do try to prod him to get the triple negative response.  We do have many laughs at our table.