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.