Day 3 – April 11, 2023 – Tuesday – Jeran’s birthday – At Sea

Th time change messed up our inner clocks. Sleeping in isn’t an option until we get caught up with PST. I normally wake up between 0430 and 0600 on the west coast, so here in eastern waters it’s worse. Getting that time back is something I’m looking forward to.

We went to breakfast in the main dining room, for some reason, and sat with Robert and Tracey from Saskatchewan. They own a farm and are, no doubt, very hard working people. They were very nice and it was fun talking with them.

At 1000 we attended a presentation by Stephanie about something. It was very informative but I have no idea what it was about. Maybe Diane can fill in those blanks.

At 1100 we attended another presentation about future cruises and how their star system works. Hey! I remembered that one. We are 2 star cruisers which means we’ve obtained 40 stars on this 20 day trip because we upgraded to a suite instead of a lowly cabin. In total we’ll have 47 stars after this cruise. Once we get to 5 stars (500 nights at sea) we get our laundry done for free. That’s a huge perk and keeps your cabin bathrooms from looking like this …

As you can see, our suite had a jetted tube that works almost better than an agitator. Rinses everything pretty good, too. Sadly, although the air circulation is really good, it’s not enough to dry things like this. It took a couple of days. As you can see, most of the clothes are mine. That’s only because she insists that I change my underwear every day. I keep telling her that I have a method that makes wearing a pair of underwear for four days. She’s not a fan, however, so I swapped them out daily. I brought 20 pair and she still found a reason to wash the old ones anyway.

At 1230 we had lunch on the Lido Deck. Sat with a couple who live on Hayden Island. Go figure. They live on an island right off I-5 between Oregon and Washington. Their boat was one of many that burned up about 6 years ago. It was 45 feet long. That’ all I know. Maybe their names will come to me in a vision later today. Nice folks and seasoned travelers.

At 1400 I joined a group of 19 other people in the Crow’s Nest on deck 11 forward for a painting class. I enjoy those and have attended many with our daughter, Jennifer, and her daughter, Lydia. This time we painted a beach scene with beach umbrellas and a couple of people.

My umbrellas look a lot like festive sand dollars. It was fun. Now all Diane has to do is figure out how to get it home. I suggested that we just leave it for the crew to hang on a wall somewhere but she vetoed that. For some reason, when I paint something she keeps it no matter what it is. So, we’re stuck with it.

I have to add that before we put any paint on the canvas we had to load a paint brush with a bunch of paint. Everyone was wearing an apron, provided by the ship, which proved to be very fortunate to the lady sitting next to me.

I don’t know how it happened, but my fully loaded paint brush landed squarely in her lap. She was very understanding and gleefully handed me the brush without fear. Quite an ice-breaker, huh?

After that mishap the day was lost to me. I’m sure we went to dinner, probably on Lido Deck, then went to bed. Tomorrow we’ll be pulling in to Cartagena for a few hours.