Well, I slept late this morning, till almost 6:30. When I finally got out of bed, Kay had already left for the gym. I ambled up to the World Cafe and got my first coffee of the day. I had already decided I wasn't attending the 9:00 AM lecture so I delayed my daily walk until after breakfast.
We crossed the equator yesterday evening, probably around 10:30 PM. On deck it was a lovely 79 degrees this morning and I managed to get almost 3 miles clocked around the sundeck. For some reason this deck is almost always one of the quieter locations onboard.
This is a view from Deck 9, the upper most deck on the Sky. This view is looking forward and the panels you see are the segments of the sliding roof over the pool area. Surprisingly, the roof has not yet been opened on this cruise. The weather currently certainly justifies having the roof open. Inside the pool area it is like a greenhouse, hot and humid. I think most people who want to avail themselves to the pool use the smaller forward infinity pool. It is located outside on deck 7.
We all attended the 11:00 AM lecture, titled "World Heritage Sites in Oceania" by Captain Tom Anderson. Despite the title, about half the lecture was about how the UNESCO program came into existence and how it works. During the lecture, he displayed dozens of photos of various UNESCO sites from around the world. Cap. Anderson said at last count there are over 1000 designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites. While presenting, he displayed about 60 of these sites. By my count, I have been fortunate to visit 24 of the 57 sites he displayed!
After returning to our cabin, I was surprised to see a phone message waiting. After listening to the message I was struggling to understand who it was. The person identified himself by name (which didn't register with me) and said he was looking forward to meeting me. He was a fellow passenger Earnie Zaremba. I was still puzzled, and then it occurred to me that I had corresponded with an Earnie about 10 years ago. He had read my blog about our World Cruise in 2015 and had some questions. He and his partner Helen were thinking about a longer cruise. We eventually had a couple of phone conversations. I decided this must be the same Earnie. I planned to phone him after lunch.
We decided to have lunch in the World Cafe today. As I was returning to our table with a beer, a gentleman approached me and asked if I was Wendell. It was Earnie. It turned out he and Helen were seated next our table and he recognized Kay from my previous post and from the Cruise Critic Directory. We had a very pleasant conversation and I am sure it will not be the last before the cruise ends.
This exemplified the unexpected connections and rich experiences that can unfold during a cruise, blending educational insights with personal interactions in a unique shipboard environment.
We had a quiet relaxing afternoon, some the time was spent on the veranda. We had decided to change our evening routine tonight because there was a lecture at 6:30 we wanted to attend. We met and went to the Star Theater at 4:30 for a Port Talk about our upcoming stop in Moorea on Sunday. After the port talk, we had about an hour and a half before the lecture so we went up to the Explorers Lounge on Deck 7. Kay and I had visited the lounge during the day just for a quiet place, but not during the evening for entertainment.
Performing was Palolo, a guitarist. He was quite good both vocal and with the instrument.
The layout of the lounge is very comfortable and "cozy". Like most areas on the Viking Ships, the public areas are designed to remind you of home. Everywhere on the ship in public areas are books. You find them even on the pool deck. They are available to borrow with no checkout or time restrictions. If you see something you like, you just borrow it.
This is one wall in the lounge. The shelves might not look full, but the content is. I would love to take many of these home with me. There are some very nice reference, nature and history books.
After leaving the lounge we traveled to the other end of Deck 7 to the World Cafe for dinner. In order to catch the lecture, the main restaurant's two hour meal would not fit our schedule.
On the way, I realized that the pool cover had finally been rolled back! Maybe they read my mind??
After dinner we descended 5 levels to deck 2 again, to the Star Theater. The lecture tonight was by my personal favorite lecturer Dr. Claudia Hackbarth, the title was "Space Weather: A new View of the Sun." My ham radio friends would have enjoyed this one.
Dr. Hackbarth is an excellent speaker and had some of the best visuals I have seen explaining sun spots, coronal holes and CME's and how the earths magnetic field effects the solar wind. She also gave an excellent explanation of how and why the earth has a magnetic field and why it occasionally reverses poles.
Following her lecture we then attended tonight's live entertainment also in the Star Theater featuring guest entertainer Mark Donoghue. Described as a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, arranger and composer. Tonight's show brought a fresh, modern edge to his own original interpretations of rock and pop classics. It was 45 minutes of pure entertainment.
As you can see, although we had a day at sea, we were not without anything to do!
We have one more sea day and then we set foot on land again, Papeete Tahiti.
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