World Cruise Day 29/152 - Sea Day - Bridge over untroubled waters

Cruise day: 29/152
Ports days: 10
Sea days: 19
Countries: 4
Continents: 1
Ports: 7

As a blogger, you have to listen to your audience.  Normally that's not a problem for me as I have a very small audience and they're not too vocal.  But for some reason, the recent entries in this blog have struck a nerve with folks and suddenly, I have readers, and the readers have spoken.  The most common complaint is that the blog is hard to read with the layout I have chosen, especially the light characters on a dark background.  I updated the blog's theme today to something that I hope is more easily readable.  Let me know if you like the change.  No promises about the writing getting any better...

We are here on another sea day.  Tomorrow will hit day #30 with fully 66.67% of those days spent at sea.

If you are an avid reader of this blog, you will recall that back on Day 12 (January 4, 2022), we sailed through the Gulf of Tehuantepec and were tossed about.  Guess where we are now?  Actually, we are coming out of the south end of the Gulf of Tehuantepec having sailed through it last night.  The difference this time?  Last time, Captain Lars took us well off the coast into the middle of the tossing and turning en route to LA.  Last night, Captain Olav kept us in tight to shore and we sailed through with very little jostling.  I think everyone that had gone through from south to north was much happier with the north to south routing. Today has been all smooth sailing.

While waiting for bridge lessons, we kept a lookout on our balcony.  We spotted another of those iridescent blue fish that I saw yesterday as well as a few turtles and a pair of small rays.  I couldn't get the camera on them before they disappeared.

We attended another beginner's bridge lesson this morning and then stayed for an intermediate lesson.  Wow.  I'm not really sure how anyone can remember every little bidding nuance and technique.  I can see why people study bridge for years.

There was another plume of smoke from our crash and burn at trivia today.  We were really adept at talking ourselves out of correct answers and that cost us three points.  Even with those, we were out of the competition.  The number of elements in the periodic table?  Not 108.  118.  What flower is the spice saffron harvested from?  Crocus. Canada's national animal?  Not the moose as the majority of the team said.  Beaver, as one lone outvoted voice said.

Arlona returned to art class and then tried her hand at Mah-Jongg.

 

Garry went nature hunting.  

Brown and Nazca boobies were again following us.

Turtles were plentiful today.

Then, I heard some squeaking and spotted a whole bunch of really fast-moving smaller birds.  Using Google Lens, I think I have identified them as shearwaters. It appears that there are a ton of different shearwaters with only minor visual differences, so I won't venture a guess as to which one these are.  And, I fully expect a birder that knows way more than I do to correct me and provide accurate identification.

A friendly dolphin popped up and that really got the birds going.

They grouped together and headed for the dolphin.

If you look closely in the middle left of the next two photos, you can see the dolphin splashing under the birds.

After that, they returned to flitting about, moving forward and backward along both sides of the ship.

Here, three are passing over a disinterested turtle.

As we sat on our deck late in the afternoon, our neighbors hollered, "dolphins!" I grabbed my camera and started snapping.  There were tons of dolphins, cresting and jumping.  It was truly amazing to watch.  We thought there might also be fish like marlins with them, but the photos all look like dolphins.

We enjoyed dinner in The Restaurant tonight with another couple we met on the ship.  Dinner was great. I had the grilled mahi-mahi.

Arlona said the spare ribs were tasty.

In the World Cafe tonight, they featured a Tahiti & Polynesian evening.  After dinner, we popped up just to take a look.

It all looked wonderful.  We met some friends who had eaten there and then confirmed it was wonderful.  In addition, the regular service staff was replaced tonight...by the bridge officers including the Captain.  Yes, the Captain himself and all his senior bridge officers were behind the buffet serving guests their Polynesian meals.  Amazing.

Photo courtesy of Jim Medalie.

We have one more sea day tomorrow before our return to Puntarenas, Costa Rica.