The day brought some bad news from the Captain. We will not be going to Senegal because the harbor is too busy with commercial traffic. Bummer! There goes one of my new countries and it is highly unlikely (no, make that never likely) to be in the area to drop in for a visit. The captain said they are actively seeking an alternative port and will tell us more when the plans are completed.

It was another typical day at sea – sleep late, eat, read, play on board ship games, eat some more, perhaps take a nap, play trivia, dress for cocktails and dinner, watch the entertainment show and go to bed! Not a bad way to spend the day.

In the afternoon I attended a sad, sobering lecture about the history of slave trade that dominated several centuries in this part of the world. It was a sad commentary about man and his sometimes inhuman actions.

On a brighter side an interesting event occurred today. At yesterday’s trivia contest, held at 10 AM, many of the participants, including us, complained that trivia has ALWAYS been at 4:30 PM on Regent cruises, not at 10 AM in the morning when it often competed with the on-board lectures. John, the cruise director, who happened to be hosting the trivia event, said he would look into the situation and I, for one, was skeptical that they would change their schedules simply to accommodate us, but I was pleasantly surprised when today’s daily “Passages” newsletter showed up in our room last night with trivia positioned at 4:30 PM. Impressive! We did good once again,  coming in at 2nd place.

Later in the day the captain announced we would now be visiting another island in the Cape Verde chain before spending a day at sea (flipping the earlier itinerary where we were to spend a day at sea before visiting Senegal) and then returning to the original itinerary. Available tours at the new port of call, Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, would be posted to our rooms this evening. I was amazed that they were able to do this on such short notice but I am sure this is not the first time things like this have happened. And sure enough we found a printed list of tours we could take when we visit Praia.

The show this evening was an absolute hilarious comedian/magician named John Lenahan from the UK. The humor was fabulous and really overshadowed the pretty mundane magic tricks. I thoroughly enjoyed the show and hope he does another on this cruise.

Tomorrow we will be visiting Mindelo on the Cape Verde island of Santa Cruz de La Palma as originally planned.