World Cruise Day 130/152 - Sea Day - The Rock, tomahawks, lobster, rainbows

Cruise day: 130/152

Ports days: 64
Sea days: 66
Countries: 22
Continents: 5
Ports: 47

It's a sea day, one of only a handful remaining. A rock, bridge, trivia, art, laundry, tomahawks, lobster, dolphins, whales, and rainbows filled the day along with talent.

We awoke this morning after that extra hour of sleep thanks to last night's time change.  We were just in time to see the Viking Star squeeze through the Strait of Gibraltar.  As you can see from this rare aerial photo just how tight that strait is.  Good piloting made sure we got through unscraped.

Here are a few shots of our transit.

What a busy place - there are seven ships in this photo off our stern, as we sailed westerly

Passing the Rock of Gibraltar on our starboard (right) side to the north

Passing by Morocco in Africa on our port (left) side to the south

The wind followed us through the channel as we encountered 45+ knot winds - you can see the spray the wind was kicking up on the left side of the photo as this ship headed south across the Strait and across the east-to-west wind

Trivia today saw us finish in a tie for second place.  That meant a tiebreaker question, and we came out victorious!  Woo - points for us (not that it will matter one iota at this point).  The three questions where we failed:

• What organ do insects not have?
• Kidney
• If you landed at Arlanda airport, where would you be?
• Stockholm, Sweden - ironically the airport we will be leaving from at the end of this trip
• Who provided the dubbed singing voices for Deborah Kerr in The King and I, Natalie Wood in West Side Story, and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady?
• Marni Nixon
• The tiebreaker: What year was the movie Braveheart released in the US?
• We answered 1996 - it was 1995 and we were closer than the others, for the win

We took the opportunity to toss in a load of laundry while Arlona went to art class.  

This was the idea - it was designed to teach shading

Arlona's effort - she's really coming into her own

I watched a new performance of Viking Star's got Talent featuring all-new performances from passengers.  The acts featured a choir, a dancer, a couple of piano players, a comedian, a singer, and a duet on woodwind and harp.  As always, it is great to see guests exercising their talent and sometimes getting outside their comfort zone.  I'm talented and thought about performing, but it seems that there isn't that much of an audience interested in watching someone make and then consume a perfect vanilla-Limoncello-pineapple martini.  Huh. Who knew?

Dinner tonight featured another tomahawk steak event on the pool deck.  

This is the fourth such event on this world cruise.  The first course featured a deconstructed caesar salad, quinoa salad, and mozzarella.  

The main course was sliced tomahawk steaks and a blended lobster mix that was served in the shell.

Dessert, like we actually needed any, was a banana split.  I forgot to get a photo of that as we were distracted by both whales and dolphins that were swimming off the starboard side of the ship.  They were too quick for phone photos but were still fun to see.  Then, Mother Nature stepped in and supplied a beautiful water-to-water double rainbow off the starboard rear quarter of the ship.  It was so close, that it seemed like you could swim to it in a minute. 

It only lasted for a brief time and then disappeared.

After way too much dinner, we watched Cruise Director Kate's show on our stateroom TV.  The Cruise Director role on Viking is different than the same role on other cruise lines. On Viking, Cruise Directors have to be entertainers.  Most are singers, but that isn't required.  We heard about one who is a magician.  To be a Cruise Director on Viking, you not only have to be a performer, but you have to have your own show that you can perform.  Kate, a proud Scot, performed her show, Celtic Kate, tonight.  She's a bundle of energy and it was fun to watch.

Tomorrow, while it is a port day, it is also half a sea day as we don't dock until noon.  We'll be in Porto, Portugal for the afternoon before sailing to England.