Sailing, sailing...

Today & tomorrow are sea days on the way back to Aruba.  We're finally out of the weather and have calm seas and partly cloudy skies.

The birds were back so I took some more photos.  Google Lens helped me identify them.  I'm pretty sure they are Brown Boobies.

A website describes them as:

The brown booby is a large seabird of the booby family, Sulidae, of which it is perhaps the most common and widespread species. It has a pantropical range, which overlaps with that of other booby species. The gregarious brown booby commutes and forages at low height over inshore waters.

They soar in front of the ship, and then, suddenly, dive into the water, presumably for fish.  They're pretty interesting to just sit and watch. I counted at least seven of them and they flew with the ship all day. Their natural gliding speed appeared to be faster than our 17-knot cruising speed, so keeping up with us took little effort.

While up at the front of the ship on deck 12 photographing boobies (where else could I get away saying this?)

I spotted this...

I wonder what kind of top-secret NASA tech we're transporting on the Equinox. :-)

After lunch, we were sitting on the pool deck and supported this lost little guy.

I don't think it can fly as fast as the ship sails, so it looks like it is hitching a ride to Aruba.

Arlona looked wow proud after she captured that shot of our stowaway.

Throughout the day, they kept making announcements to have different passengers contact guest services. We wondered, could this be COVID-related? Sure enough, at dinner, the captain made the announcement that two passengers and one crew member, all fully vaccinated, had tested positive for COVID-19. They will all be disembarked in Aruba. The tracelets we all wear allowed then to identify all close contacts. They are all isolated and are being tested. Our journey continues.

Tonight is the first of two "chic" nights, so once again, we get to have fun dressing up.

My dinner date, as usual, looked amazing.

Dessert tonight deserved a photo - a philo dough tulip with citrus cream and fresh fruit. Yum.

We have fun getting dressed up, even though it seems to be going out of style. Tonight, we saw perhaps six men in tuxedos, not counting me.

Tomorrow is another relaxing sea day.