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This is day one (of three) of days at sea as we work our way from São Tomé to our next port of call, Walvis Bay, Namibia. No need to wake up early so no alarm was set and we both managed to sleep until about 9AM. Yvonne admits she has been sleeping pretty well since being on board and I suggested that maybe we should spend more time cruising which she quickly dismissed as not a good idea.

Because we had crossed the equator last night the ship performed the rituals normally done when one crosses the equator this morning on the pool deck. This ritual goes back to long ago as sailors were “baptized” on the event of their first crossing. Known as “pollywogs” before making the crossing they were baptized and made into “shellbacks”, people who have crossed the equator previously. King Neptune presided over the event which in modern days involves being doused with ice cold water and kissing a fish! John, our cruise director, donned the proper King Neptune attire, and was accompanied by the production staff dressed in appropriate nautical/ seafaring gear to oversee the ritual with much fanfare (music by Queen) and noise. Surprisingly there were about 30 people who admitted this was their first time crossing the equator and dressed appropriately (swim suits) to be “baptized” by King Neptune himself. It was all in great fun. Yvonne and I have had the privilege of multiple equator crossings so we simply watched the proceedings.

Before we knew it it was late afternoon and time for trivia, and because it was a sea day our whole team was there and we managed to finally win the event, although we only got 12/15 questions correct. It was a hard quiz!!

We cornered Terry & Barb Toth, whom we had met earlier in the cruise, and suggested having dinner together which we did. Terry has led a fascinating career as a musician (

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degree in music- trumpet), magician, editor, vineyard owner, and publication consultant including setting up the 401K program literature/training for GE. Talk about a varied career!

Foggie Flax, the UK comedian, impersonator and singer, performed another show after dinner. His impersonations of sounds and singers was outstanding. He kept us enthralled and laughing throughout the show.

This ended another “tiring(😀)” day of cruising. Good night, all…

Every hear about São Tomé & Principe? Neither had I. It is the second smallest and second least populated country of Africa (after Seychelles). They are two separate islands located 93 miles apart. The islands are located about 150 miles from the coast of Africa. São Tomé actually sits on the equator. The country was originally occupied by the Portuguese, and that is still its official language. It was settled by the Portuguese in the 15 century and throughout the 16 century it was an important part of the Atlantic slave trade. It also was a big producer of sugarcane during that period. São Tomé and Principe received its independence in 1975 and remains one of Africa’s most stable and democratic countries. Not surprisingly most people are Catholic(81%). The total population is about 221,000 with 72,000 living on the island of São Tomé.

Again there were not many tours offered and I selected one called “Highlights of São Tomé” figuring it would give us the best overview of a country we knew nothing about. There was no dock capable of handling our size ship so we had to tender in, the first (and luckily the only time) we will have to do so. It was another warm day and the tender has limited ventilation so it is not the most pleasant mode of transportation. On top of that there was a bit of a swell on the ocean so the tender would raise up and down with respect to the loading platform so the crew had to time when people could board, further slowing down the process and since the tender holds about 125 people it was a slow process of getting from the ship to the shore. Furthermore the landing area on the pier was limited in size and we had the same problem of a bobbing ship with respect to the pier so unloading was also a slow process.

However, it was accomplished and we began our local tour in fairly old, small buses that held about 20 people. It did have large windows that would open so the ride was not unpleasant. We drove along the coastline for a bit stopping at a beach where fishermen were mending their nets. Everywhere we went people were very friendly, waving and saying hello. As you will see from the pictures the homes are pretty primitive, however, everyone was dressed in clean clothes.

The next stop was at the local church where we were entertained by a group of dancers of varying ages. We also attracted a large crowd of local people who seemed interested in their visitors. After about 10 minutes of vigorous dancing the dancers all lined up and wanted to shake our hand, which we graciously accommodated.

Stop three was a quick walk through the downtown area where another set of dancers performed for us followed by a walk through their bustling market and eventually ending up at their national museum, located in a 16th century fortress on the shores of the port. A lighthouse was added to the fortress in 1866. The museum contains religious and colonial era artifacts. Unfortunately the signage is in Portuguese and a local guide was not available to explain much of what was on display, so our visit was a bit of a disappointment to me.

Returning to the ship was a bit of a hassle as it was very hot, many of the tours ended at the same time so there was a large crowd gathered at the pier and only one tender can land/board at a time. Luckily the crew was handing out cold juice and water as we waited and we managed to get one of the earlier transports back to the coolness of our ship.

We arrived back at the ship to find it decorated for Christmas-trees and garland everywhere!  We also learned that there was now an art focused scavenger hunt being held. The ship’s photographer went around and took pictures of various artwork around the ship and created a 4 page montage of pictures, including some sneaky cropping of a picture, making it more difficult to determine what it was. We had two days to locate the art and write down where it was located. Those who successfully identified the works would get additional Regent Reward points. Game on!

Tonight was another new on board entertainer-Greek classical guitarist, Dimitris Dekavalla, who has performed in many famous venues like Carnegie Hall, the Royal Albert Hall and the Vatican. His show tonight focused on the Spanish guitar; he was good.

Tomorrow begins another couple of days at sea as we work our way to Namibia, our next stop.

 

 

Not much to report today other than another day of games, lectures, food and entertainment! We chose to have a quiet sit down breakfast in the dining room and were rewarded because the special of the day was a stuffed French toast, one of Yvonne’s favorites and I opted for one of my favorites-Swedish pancakes with lingonberry preserves! It was a good way to start the day.

Each evening when they do a turn-down of our room they leave a copy of “Passages”, which highlights the activities offered the next day. There is also a 4 page newspaper with nightlights of happenings around the world. There is an option to get a full blown copy of several papers but I don’t need to know that much about the world when I am on vacation.

I was intrigued and attended a 11 AM lecture given by the Chief Engineer about technical details about the ship. It is pretty impressive of what it takes to keep a ship of this size and complexity running smoothly.

I skipped the gambling tournaments as I figured I could never repeat my winning the blackjack tournament earlier in the cruise. however, I did participate in several of the competitions to win more Reward points and we participated in our daily trivia competition.

Sophie, one of the lead singers on the production staff offered a pre-dinner solo concert in one of the cocktail lounges which we attended. She is from the UK and just graduated from college. Being on this ship is her first real job and she admits to be nervous. No need to be as she is a natural!  She has a great voice and great “banter” with the audience between songs. I expect she will be a big hit someday and told her I look forward to seeing her “in lights” someday.

The after dinner show was by a new performer, Susana, a gifted violinist from Hungary, who entertained us with a variety of different music genres.   She, along with Foggie Flax, had just boarded the ship for the next few days to entertain us.  These entertainers must lead a trying life, flying in/out of often strange airports to board a ship for a few days before moving on to another gig elsewhere.

Tomorrow we will be in the small country of São Tomé & Principe, a series of islands off the coast of Africa.

Togo becomes the 100th United Nations country we have visited and it wins by default as we were not allowed to visit both Senegal and Ivory Coast prior to landing here. Coming into the harbor it became obvious that Lome is a major port. There were ships and cranes everywhere!

The official name of the country is the Togolese Republic. The official language is French. It is a small country (22,000 square miles but only 71 miles wide) with a population of about 8 million people. Its main product is agriculture. From the 16-18th centuries it was a big part of the slave trade and was known as the “slave coast”. It was ruled by the Germans, then the French and gained its independence in 1960. The capital is Lome, where we have docked.

As has become the case with these lesser developed countries the tour options were fairly limited and I selected one that would educate us a bit about their dedication to voodoo practices and experience some of their music and dance. Our first stop was at the local voodoo market where “products” are sold that are associated with voodoo and local medicine practices. It was a bit disgusting as dead animal parts were being sold that are used in voodoo rituals and medicine. If I understood our local guide properly when you are ill you go to the local hospital to be diagnosed. It the doctor feels your malady should be treated by the local tribal doctor you are sent to him for treatment. He, in turn, would send you to the voodoo market to purchase the proper animal part(s) to be returned to the tribal doctor who would transform it into the medicine needed to treat your ills! Hard to believe such practices are still in place today, but apparently old traditions are hard to break in these countries. We did not stay long in the marketplace as the sights and smells prompted us to move on fairly quickly!

Next we were driven to a local school where, even though it was a Sunday, children had gathered to meet us and entertain us with song.

From there it was a short ride to a local Ewe tribal village to experience the music, song and dance of the Togolese people. We were met at the entrance of the village by a fairly large group of singing people, and a local leader (priest?) who performed a ritual welcoming for visitors to their village. Once we entered the village we were met by a procession of village elders and the local king(?)/elder and his entourage, with much singing, drumming and dancing. We were given some free time to explore the village area. The whole event was marred by the fact that there were simply too many people from our ship here and it was difficult to see much of what was going on. Also, I had hoped there would be crafts for sale but surprisingly there were none! I was disappointed I would not be able to secure a souvenir of my visit.

Thus ended our tour of Togo. It was back to the ship for more trivia competition, dinner and a evening show that featured a recently boarded entertainer with the funky stage name of “Foggie Flax”. It turns out he was quite an entertainer and a darn good vocal impersonator, who sang some great songs mimicking the sounds of the original singer.

Tomorrow will be another day at sea, as we work our way to our next port of call, São Tomé & Principe.

 

Our port of call is the twin citiy of Sekondi-Takoradi, the largest city in the western region of the Republic of Ghana (the formal name of Ghana). Ghana is the 2nd most populated country in Africa (after Nigeria) with a population of 31 million plus people. It was the first African country to become independent, gaining its independence from the UK in 1957. Sekondi-Takoradi is basically an industrial city known for its timber, cocoa processing, plywood and more recently oil, shipping and deep water port. It served as a major staging area for British aircraft during WWII, to be used in the African conflicts.

I forgot to mention in yesterday’s blog that we had to have our temperatures taken before we could disembark in Ghana, so several locations were set up on-board the ship where we could go for the quick test. Did not hear of anyone failing the test.

The choices for tours were very limited and I picked one that advertised we would experience local music and dance as part of the tour.  I was surprised at the bus we boarded for the tour, as it was fairly modern and decorated rather “lavishly” with heavily tinted rose colored windows and tassels hanging on all the interior windows! It reminded me of the type of buses you often see in India and Malaysian countries. driving through the streets of town it was obvious this was a poor country.

Our first stop was at the Bisa Aberwa Museum which turned out to be delightful. It is a museum dedicated to the heroes of the African struggles and civil rights movements, and contains several thousand sculptures in wood, ceramic, and other artistic representations, along with photographs. It is considered one of the best private such museums in the world. It was great but unfortunately we were not given much time to simply appreciate what it held. I could have easily spent a few hours there, it was that good.

From there we were transported to one of the more glamorous hotels in the area where we were able to have beverages (good local beer, soda, water), sample local snacks (dried banana chips) which were quite good.  We watched local dancers with their accompanying drummers perform some traditional Ghanaian folk dances. The hit of the show was two young boys (10-12 years old?) who danced vigorously for a long, long time even though it was quite hot and humid.

Because we are fairly close (5 degrees N) to the equator it was hot (86 degrees today with possible showers) and humid, so these fairly short, 4 hour tours, were just about right so we could get back to the cool confines of our ship, which we did after the entertainment at the hotel. Back where the ship was docked many locals had set up to sell their local art and clothing on the wharf, and I was able to add a small item to my collection of African street art!

Showers, lunch at the pool deck, and trivia completed the afternoon activities. Surprisingly there was no left over turkey on any of the menus. We are disappointed!  (We later heard that they ran out of turkey on Thanksgiving). The entertainment tonight was a repeat performance of “Tiano”, the piano/singing duo, which we decided to skip choosing instead to simply relax in our suite.

Tomorrow is a big day as I will be visiting my 100th UN country, which will be Togo since we had to skip Senegal and the Ivory Coast. There is a funny encounter I had that lead to being interviewed for the morning video posted on the ship’s television for people to see. I wanted to get a picture commemorating my visit to my 100th country so I borrowed some paper and a felt pen from the reception desk to make a sign showing “100” on it. As I was walking away I saw the cruise director, John Ekin, getting ready to film his morning show and he asked me what the 100 meant. I explained and he said he wanted to interview me for the show which I did! It will be interesting to see if anyone approaches me after it airs!

 

It was another very quiet day at sea. As I write this a week or so later I had to review what pictures I had taken to memorialize the day. There was not much to report.

I for one, did not realize how large the African continent is. Looking at the picture below you suddenly can see it is a VERY big continent! No wonder it takes so long to traverse the west coast to Cape Town. Just think how long ancient mariners took to do the same route.

Our eating locations varies with our mood. We have eaten a sit down breakfast in the main dining room on a couple occasions; others time we simply grab a coffee and pastry in the coffee connection. For a change of pace we did do the morning buffet in the Veranda dining area. Lunches also get varied, sometimes eating at the pool grill for sandwiches and salads, or at the Veranda for more selections. They also serve a sit down lunch in the main dining room which we have tried, because their menu always features some of the most popular dishes served in the specialty restaurants. I particularly like the Manhattan clam chowder which has a tomato base and is loaded with clams and vegetables. Our daily choice for a location is based on our mood of the day. Surprisingly there was no left over turkey on any of the menus today.  We are disappointed!  (We later heard that theyd actually ran out of turkey on Thanksgiving).

 

Surprisingly we have not attended the 4 PM tea since boarding the ship, other then me getting that scone with clotted cream once I found it was always on the menu. The rest of their offerings are more elaborate desserts and I guess we simply are not hungry when 4 PM rolls around. Of course the fact that trivia occurs at 4:30 makes us feel we do not have the time to leisurely enjoy the tea time.

The evening shows are always at 9:30 which works out to be a convenient time as we commonly head for dinner between 6:30 and 7:00. This evening the Production Staff put on one of their shows that featured the dance group.

Tomorrow we will be in Ghana, another new country for us.

Day 2 at sea. We slept until almost 9:30!  Has life at sea improved our sleep habits? Missed the morning lecture but grabbed a quick cup of coffee as the “county fair” was scheduled to begin at 10:30. This is a new event for us as we have never seen it on any previous cruises. Staff from each department created a simple game that reflected their department. Examples include rolling dice(casino), identifying a spice by smelling it (kitchen), identifying pictures from around the world (destination), ring toss on liquor bottles (beverage)-you get the idea. Depending on how well you did with the game you received tickets that would be good for prizes that would be raffled off after the fair. Gift items included ship items like baseball caps, teddy bears, ship models – I joked they were items that were not selling in the gift shops. There were, however, a few discount coupons to the spa and jewelry shops included in the mix. I did some of the contests and Yvonne was the photographer-in-residence. We collected about 10 tickets for the raffle but did not win anything. It was a fun event and everyone seemed to have a good time, especially the crew members who ran the booths.

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing (or in my case competing for more Regent reward tickets). The seas were as flat as I have ever seen them, the temperature was moderated a bit by a cloud cover but you could definitely tell we were approaching the equator. We cruised along at a leisurely 16 knots as we have to spend another day at sea because we will not be stopping at the Ivory Coast.

Trivia at 4:30PM. It was getting so popular that we had to go up at 4:00PM to secure our seating area. Today we were victorious and took first place along with a bunch of other teams). Not a problem as all teams were given the 3 point prize awarded for 1st place.

We had a light lunch as we knew there would be turkey and all the trimmings on the menu tonight. On the video this morning the head chef said they slow cooked over 400 pounds of turkey for the day.

The entertainment schedule for the evening was shifted a bit today. Rather than the feature show being at 9:30 PM there was a 6 PM pre-dinner show featuring the resident pianist, Kathy Phippard, who had created a show revolving abound famous female singers from the 1940s to the present day. As pictures of the singers were projected on the big screen Kathy sang parts of the songs the singer had made famous. She even was able to imitate the vocal characteristics of the singer. It was a very good show down memory lane.

We again chose to “share a table” for dinner and had a pleasant surprise as we were escorted to a table where UK residents, David Baker and his wife were seated. David is one of the two lecturers on board the ship and what made it more interesting is that he worked for NASA during the same time as I was at Boeing so we had a delightful time talking about the “old days” of space exploration, the state of politics in both the UK and US, and  the shortcomings of today’s youth as we enjoyed our Thanksgiving turkey. It was a delightful evening.

Tonight’s 9:30 show was slated to be rock & roll dance party and realizing that those days are long gone, we retired to our suite and caught up on our reading before bidding Thanksgiving day, 2022 a fond farewell.

Tomorrow will be another day at sea with hopefully, a lot of left over turkey to enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

After yesterday’s “adventure” a day at sea was a welcomed event.  No alarm was set and I slept until after 8 AM. There was an early morning bocce ball tournament on the top deck at 9:15AM that I wanted to participate in and I was glad I did as I managed to beat my opponent and gain a coveted 3 point Regent reward card to add to my collection. This was followed by a ladder golf competition against the ship’s senior staff (including the captain) where I beat my opponent and as a team the guest beat the ship’s team so we all walked away with 2 more points! I was amazed at how many guests are suddenly showing up for these games.

A bit of trivia: We know there are people from all over the world on board and I was curious how many came from where so I inquired. Here is what I learned. There are 300+ people from the US, 150 from the UK, 40 from Canada, 30 from Australia, 20 from Germany and smaller numbers from other countries.

I had a coupon for 50% off a massage and decided to have one to see if it would loosen up my hamstring muscle which began to ache slightly yesterday. It has been over 30 years since I last had a massage so it was a new learning experience for me. I must admit the warm oil and the gentle kneading of my body by the Philippine masseuse felt good, but I later found it did not eliminate the hamstring issue. I may have to try these more often, but not at the normal rates charged on a cruise ship.

It is definite warmer (85 degrees with 61% humidity) now that we are moving further south down the African coastline. Mid-morning the captain came onto give us more bad news; we will not be stopping at our next port of call, Ivory Coast. No reason was given, but we suspect there were issues related to health restrictions. Instead we will simply have another day at sea. Hopefully, there will not be more of these or it will mess up my goal of reaching 100 countries this trip.

The magician,  John Lanahan, offered a seminar on how some magic tricks are performed and it was a sellout crowd who attended. He performed several tricks where he showed us how it was done but also did a few that he did not disclose to us. It was a fun one hour.

Trivia found us taking 3rd place as we missed two answers, one relayed to the formal name of several Jewish holidays (no one on our team was Jewish) and the other was related to a nonsense poem called Jabberwocky.

On each Regent cruise there is a special cocktail party hosted for members of the Seven Seas Society, membership given to people with multiple nights spent on Regent ships. There are various categories of members based on the total number of nights sailing with Regent. The orchestra plays, there are fancy appetizers and drinks served and the Captain will present pins to new members reaching higher categories. It is very similar to what airlines do with their frequent flyer programs. Well, tonight there was a special Diamond award given to a gentlemen who has spent over 1,000 nights on Regent ships! If you figure it costs $800-1,000/night to sail with Regent no wonder they go out of their way to make people feel special! It is a goal we will never reach; we are simply gold members (>100 nights).

We again asked to share table in the the main dining room and we ended up with a gentleman from Melbourne, Australia who was alone. He was an accountant and still running a firm at the age of 81. I asked how he manage to get away so long and he said his daughter runs the company in his absence. We had a pleasant evening discussing various cruise lines, trips taken, life in Australia, etc. Yes, people do eat kangaroos. I really like the concept of indicating to the hostess whether you are willing to share a table.

Chris Hamilton, the pianist, was again the performer tonight and he ended the show with a fairly unique event. He said he has memorized the Oscar winning song from movies dating back to 1934. He invited the audience to call out a year (he collected 12) and he then played (in a continuous fashion) the song and the name of the movie it came from while blindfolded. I was impressed.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we were promised there would be plenty of turkey and all the trimmings served at dinner.

 

Our port of call today is Banjul, Gambia. Its official name is the “Republic of The Gambia”. It is the smallest country in Africa and is surrounded on the North, South and East by Senegal. On the west is the Atlantic Ocean. The Gambia River, which runs from the East to the West, splits the country in half. It’s current population is 1.87 Million (2013). The Portuguese were first here in 1455 but never created a presence. In 1765 Gambia became part of the British Empire and, as a result, the official language of the country is English. It gained its independence in 1965. Banjul is the capital of the country with a population of about 400,000, but it is only the 4th largest city in the country. 94 % of the population are followers of Islam.

The tour I picked was a long one in duration (8.5 hours) because it involved, first, a 2 hour boat ride up the Gambia River to the small port village of Albreda, which is then a short walk to Juffureh, the ancestral village and home of Kunta Kinteh, the subject of the now famous 1976 television documentary based on Alex Haley’s book:  “The Saga of an American Family”. We were warned that the boat taking us to the village would be pretty spartan (very basic are the words used, with no air conditioning, seating on plastic chairs, etc). That did not deter either of us as we wanted to seek out this piece of history we were aware of. We watched the ship video describing the trip which showed what I would call a fairly large yacht-type boat as our mode of transportation. No problem; we will manage.

When we arrived at the dock to board our boat for the ride up the river we did not see the pictured yacht; what we saw is shown in the picture below! What came to mind was “The African Queen”! Being the adventurous travelers we are, we took the change in stride and gingerly boarded the craft. Because there were many of us there were actually two boats of a similar design that would be making the trip. The good news is that the boats were open rather than the closed cabin expected with the original boat, so excessive heat would probably not be a problem. Also there was quite a breeze blowing when we left at 8AM thus making the ride comfortable. Both boats left the dock and proceeded upriver. That is when we ran into problem #1-there were waves on the river and suddenly water was being sprayed into the boats and onto us! Luckily they had side-screens made of colorful cotton cloth that could be pulled shut so we lost some of the breeze but avoided most of the water spray as we progressed up river. There was coffee (instant) and tea plus cookies available to help pass the time. The literature said you might want to bring a book to read but we figured it would be more fun to watch the scenery as we went. Unfortunately, the river is very wide  and there was nothing but mangroves on the shore so watching the world go by became boring pretty fast.

It did take all of two hours to reach our destination, the tiny village of Albreda where problem #2 showed up. There was a deteriorating concrete pier at the village but no evidence of cleats to tie up to. Also the wind was still blowing and the boat rocked in the wavy action of the river. The additional problem was that the tide was low and our boat sides were quite a bit below the edge of the pier, giving rise to the problem of how do we safely exit the boat to get onto land. After several attempts to somehow lash the boat to the pier the locals went to get their smaller skiffs with the idea of transferring us first to the skiff, then beaching the skiff to allow us to proceed to shore. It worked and luckily no one was injured as the transfers were made in bobbing waters. Many local men appeared to offer hand holds to us as we exited the boats. I had to laugh when it was my turn the young man said, “here, grandpa, hold my hand”! I could not question his choice of words as I am obviously a grandpa.

When ashore local guides took us around the area to see the slave museum which contained pictures and stories (sad era of history) about man’s inhumanity to his fellow man and to visit several other local sites related to the slave trade era. We stopped at the local preschool and were greeted by dozens of smiling, happy children who wanted to shake our hands and sing us a song. They were delightful!

We then were walked across the local “highway”(a dirt road) to the village of a Jufferuh, where we first met the village chief, in this instance it happened to be a women, who welcomed us to her village.

Once welcomed to the village we walked to the ancestral home of Kunta Kinteh to hear briefly his story of capture and life after being a slave, and then to meet and take photographs with an 8th generation descendant of his, an elderly women and her son. It was her father who first met Alex Haley in the 1970s. The family still Iives in the compound of very modest homes in the area. Yvonne questioned why Alex Haley and the TV producers who made so much money on the series did not do more for the village!

As we walked back to our boat for the return trip we encountered problem #3:  The wind was still blowing a bit, the water was still choppy and unfortunately the tide had dropped so the deck of our boats were even lower from the concrete pier than when we arrived. At first the thought was we would sit on the edge of the pier and jump the short distance to the boat’s deck where waiting hands of boat attendants would gather us onto the boat. Now, the people on this trip are of an advanced age and not as agile as they used to be which turned out to pose a tremendous problem as they either said they could not easily sit or jump so a Plan B  needed to be implemented. The new plan involved getting back into the local skiffs, ferried out to the larger ships and climbing back over the sides of the boat to get inside. And so it started. Unfortunately, in some cases people ended up on the wrong boat and needed to climb a second time to return to their proper boat. All this was done with the boats (big and small) bobbing in the water.  Again we were extremely lucky and the transfer was somehow accomplished without anyone being injured. The trip back found smoother waters but the wind was now gone and it was hotter as it was late in the day. They did serve us a surprisingly good buffet lunch of chicken, fish, pasta salad, rice and couscous salads on the trip back.

As we approached the dock in the harbor from which we left we ran into problem #4: the tide had fallen and the pier was WAY above the deck of our boats. How do we get off? There was no ladder on the pier and we certainly could not somehow propel ourselves upward by 3-4 feet to reach the pier. Solution: we basically climbed to the roof of our boat, climbed over the railing with two crew members supporting us from the back so we did not fall, while 2-3 local men, standing on the pier, grabbed our hands and literally picked us up and deposited us on the pier! It was a chaotic sight but successful! We all managed to safely exit the ship and return to safe ground!  Needless to say it was quite an experience and I can safely say everyone was very glad to get back to the safety of our ship.

Tonight we were treated to another show given by comedian/magician John Lanahan and he was as funny tonight as he was the first time we saw him-a very enjoyable entertainer.

Tomorrow is another day at sea. We enjoy the breakup of touring days with days at sea. It gives us a chance to relax and recover!

 

 

The captain addresses the ship at noon each day to update us on our position, the weather and sea conditions.  The temperature was 75 degrees, the sea depth was a huge 14,000 feet, the wind speed was 35 mph and the sea state was 7-9 foot waves. The sea conditions posed no problem with our ship, although there was a small degree of motion.

As has become our habit on days at sea we slept late, had a light breakfast at the coffee connection where we enjoy the fresh Americano they make for us. Yvonne chooses to read and I peruse the daily agenda looking for opportunities to earn more Regent Reward points.

One of today’s game was a variation of “corn hole” which I am quite familiar with. The difference with the ship’s version is that they place the two boards next to each other with two points awarded for hitting the hole on the first board and three points if you hit the hole on the second board. One point is awarded if you land on either board surface. The other unique aspect to the game is that the ship’s staff, including the Captain play against the passengers-one against one. If the passenger beats the staff member  (each person throws 4 bean bags) they get an award ticket worth one point. At the end of the competition (everyone who shows up gets to play) if the passengers as a whole beat the staff they get an additional one point reward. It is a popular event and it is not uncommon to have 20 or so passengers show up. There is a lot of ribbing that goes on between staff and  passengers during the event.

 

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On sea days the ship often will put on a special buffet at the Pool Grill. Today the buffet was advertised as being “French” so we went. Lots of cheeses and other French dishes were served.

Trivia has become a very popular event and we are finding we have to get there 30 minutes early to secure sufficient number of chairs to our team. We continue to have the same team: a couple from The UK (he is an actuary and a whiz at math), a couple from Australia and we are the token US couple to help with American type questions. We continue to do reasonably well, usually coming in at second place-with two points each! There is also a MENSA 5 question quiz published every day and we are attempting to figure out the often difficult questions.

The show tonight featured Shimi Goodman for his second show. He sometimes seems a bit over the top but I am sure the women love it.

Tomorrow we will be back on schedule and will be visiting Gambia on the coast of Africa.