Zipping along at 19 knots

New Cruise director

I had heard nothing but good things about Sammi and her bubbly personality and they were all right. She gave us a good overview of what to expect on this next leg and expresses herself in delightful prose. As an example, she was discussing the Suez Canal and said thing of the canal as the cleavage between two sand bosoms. It’s a good analogy as the banks of the canal rise high above the water of the canal. If you are on shore and you look toward the canal, you cannot see any water and it looks like the ships are gliding along the sand.

Forgive me for laughing

People are asking about the locks on the Suez Canal. It doesn’t have any as the water on both sides is at the same level and they dug the canal between these two bodies of water: The Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. There had always been small inland routes but nothing like this canal. We enter from the south and during the night we will be stalled in the middle where it is wider. The craft going from north to south will then have a direct and unobstructed transit to the Red Sea: they do not have any delays.

I know the cost to transit the Panama Canal costs more than $400 USD per person to the ship and I don’t know what other costs. I have no idea how much the Suez costs but it, along with tourism, are the major sources of income for Egypt.

Destination lecture

This was about Aqaba the port about 2 hrs from Petra which is the tour we will be taking. It is our second time but we feel so lucky to be able to do it again. I am dreading the hot weather but am psyched up for it. I have my trekker stick, long socks and closed toed shoes, scarf, hat, and water laid out for it. Deb gave us a lot more information than I’ve ever known about the city of Aqaba as my focus has always been on Petra.

Dr. Livingston I presume

This was a very interesting lecture about Livingston and Stanley. I knew a few of the details but these story tellers kept one’s interest to the very end. The man/husband has a master’s in Journalism, and the wife is a PhD in Anthropology. I suspect she does the research and he writes the script and they take turns presenting. It is spoken well but is text is all prepared; this is not off the cuff and no questions at the end.

We won!

Amazing. Only 5 of us. The champagne bottle appeared again, and again I asked if there were other options. Ramona was interested in the keychain flash lights so Yuri (he just came on in Dubai and is a new dancer) brought back 4 and said that was all there was and he said the bottle could be given to the 5^th person (who had already left). I called and left a message in his cabin about our win and he said to keep it so we gave it to Ramona and Craig, the other two players, at dinner.

All the Way

This movie was playing in the Lounge this afternoon. I went because Brian Cranston was playing in it and we had seen it before. I really liked his performance and through he captured LBJ perfectly. But I had other things I wanted to do, like listen to the economist. I am several issues behind because, for reasons we cannot figure out, I cannot download them when we are out of LA. So Ed downloaded them on his phone and I am using his phone to listen to them.

We didn’t win trivia in the afternoon but we had fun.

Afternoon task

I have been saving all our Patters, my puzzles, our tour papers and info, with the idea that when we get home someone may be interested. I have the blog and such from 2008 and looked at it a few times but put it away as the print is too small for me. Maybe this is all a waste of time but we’ll see. The hardest part is that I didn’t bring brads along so I’m trying to find ways to secure the sections in such a way that they will go into a 3 ring binder easily later.

Formal portraits

We had fun with these using the bottle of champagne and a rose. The photographers are used to our craziness by now.

Ed wore his black shirt with red bowtie and cumberbund. He looked like a Mafiosi. When Oscar came around, he explained to us that the story is not real. He’s such a howl. Forever more when I hear a cheery “HOw—loh” I’ll remember him.

At dinner we laughed ourselves silly again. All of us went to our rooms to get out of the formal attire before the entertainment.

Ed went to the singer: I wanted to catch up on stuff including my reading.

Yeah, another hour!

So we turn our clocks back again by one hour. But it won’t last indefinitely: at some point we have to give it back for a few ports, and then again, we’ll go back by an hour before Venice.