World Cruise Day 11/152 - sea day - Arlona is back to 95%, and the boobies are back

Cruise day: 11/152
Ports days: 4
Sea days: 7
Countries: 4
Continents: 1
Ports: 4

Arlona awoke and announced that she felt about 95% better this morning.  That means another semi-low-key day.  That works well with a scheduled sea day. Well, I should say that it is a scheduled sea day now.  Originally, we were supposed to dock in Nicaragua today.  Issues in that country not related to COVID caused Viking to cancel the port shortly after we departed from Florida.

We continued our bridge lessons today.  For now, it is almost entirely focused on the bidding process with no real discussion about the play or scoring.  We're hoping that it all comes together eventually.

Today, they held a cooking demonstration where two chefs prepared beef bourguignon and tiramisu.  We attended with our bridge partners.  At the end of the demo, the two servings of tiramisu were just sitting on stage.  They asked if they could take them and were told, "sure".  They'll have a nice dessert after lunch.

After trivia, we worried that others might think the ship was sinking, given how badly we crashed and burned.  Oh well, there's another round tomorrow.

Right before trivia, during the Captain's noon announcement, he revealed that in the last two days, two more cases of COVID had popped up - one passenger and one crew.  Both are isolated and doing fine.  Until everyone vulnerable gets this and gets over it, it is not going to go away.  That last part was my editorial.

While on our deck, we caught a glimpse of several dolphins.  They weren't with us long and disappeared before I could grab the camera.  They also announced that the bridge had spotted whales but we didn't see them.  We did see several turtles that were just floating about.

To take my mind off things, I grabbed the camera and shot some photos of the brown and Nazca boobies that were once again cruising along with us.  

 

Many times, we would hear them vocalize right before a quick wing reconfiguration and a dive into the water after a fish.

After they were in the water, of course, they need to get airborne again.  They flap their strong wings, but to get up on top of the water, it takes a little more than that.  If you look closely at some of the photos below, you can see that their takeoff run is literally that - they run along the water.

Occasionally, they preen their feathers as they fly.  It really looks odd as they look down and then completely tuck their head under, smoothing their underside.

There were so many flying with us today that sometimes they looks like a graceful formation.

And other times, they look like a mid-air collision about to happen.

There are certainly worse ways to spend an afternoon than watching these graceful birds soar and fish.

On the way to dinner, we met Lou Thieblemont, one of the guest lecturers on the ship.  He is a retired airline pilot and astronomer.  He and his wife, Lynn were out on deck awaiting the moon and Jupiter to become visible.  They were both very nice and we chatted for a while.

If you look really closely, you can see a lovely sliver crescent moon - I added a second photo with a larger.  I took a shot with the moon and Jupiter, but they were quite far apart and it wasn't worth posting.

With Arlona holding steady at 95%, we ate a light dinner and opted to watch a little TV in the stateroom. Tomorrow, we're shooting for a 100% Arlona!