A New Leg of the Cruise
We gained some new passengers yesterday and so there is a
lot of “getting to know you” going on.
New Speaker
Thank goodness we now have a speaker with some substance!
The topic was the Coral Sea and WWII and the speaker (I’ll tell you more about
him later as you may want to look up his books) is a retired Naval officer who
is a history buff and writes books on various wars. He was afraid there would
be few people who showed up for his lecture but the lounge wass probably ¾
full. He gives you a lot of tidbits I, at least, had never heard before about
Pearl Harbor, for example, that the Admiral there in 1939 was concerned about
the vulnerability of the fleet in Pearl Harbor and did a practice run – this
was later published in an American publication and the Japanese simply copied
the idea. However, the Japaese were not so concerned about the ships that
eventually were bombed as they were about the aircraft carriers which were not
in the Harbor at the time.
TRIVIA
We have a whole new team this am. A young Aussie couple who
are on until Hong Kong joined us. I would guess they are in their 30s and the
other couple are from the previous leg but lost their trivia mates. We made a
very respectable score on a very difficult quiz but did not win.
The new cruise staff member who did it is Basil from
Johannesburg So Africa. His accent is a real challenge to us and will require some
adaptations on all of our parts. But he is cheerful and of a good nature.
Visual impairment: the wife of the Aussie couple has
retinitis pigmentosa, an hereditary disease that takes one’s vision at an early
age. She wear a pin that says: “Visually impaired”. I didn’t see this right
away but she did tell me when I tried to show her something. So in a funny
twist on things, I have become her helper. When she says what she thinks the
answer is, I write it in my usual large lettering to show others. Likewise,
when I put an answer down in large letters, she takes her magnifier to see it.
We don’t have one good eye between us. Her impairment is far worse than mine
and will be continuing over time. So sad for such a pretty lovely woman. But
she has spunk and does participate. Very nice.
Lunch Today
An Aussie couple who just joined yesterday, a couple with us
from LA, and two older ladies who joined in Ft. Lauderdale. We have seen the
two of latter before. I hope they aren’t travelling together (I doubt it) as
they seem constantly to be at loggerheads bickering or complaining about one
thing or another. Each considers herself special in the eyes of the serving
staff. Sometimes I think they’d make a great model for some movie scenes.
Everyone complained of the heat in Sydney. The lady Aussie
said that Saturday’s temp was the hottest in 120 yrs in Sydney.
Gossip mill: The Ruby Princess, which was also stuck with us
in LA because of the weather, eventually left for Honolulu and had to turn back
because of the weather. It must have made some voyage as it was the ship due in
Sydney yesterday.
Also an explosion on the emerald Princess what killed one
porter. We have no way to get accurate info about all this except by asking our
room steward.
The afternoon was lazy with book reading (me) and TV
marathon (Ed). Then to trivia and the same team we had on the last leg. Again we
lost by one point: that seems to be our destiny. The Also Rans.
Entertainment was a pianist. Ed went. I went back to my
book.
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