20240501 Sapphire Princess South Pacific Cruise Day 28 - Sea day 3 of 8 back to San Pedro - May Day! May Day! It's the equator...again

Sapphire Princess South Pacific Cruise Day 28 - Sea Day #3 back to L.A. - stowaway bird and flying fish

No, we aren't sinking. But, we are making news. You can check out this story from Fox Business about our norovirus outbreak. The good news is that the cases continue to decrease. There was only one new case in the last 24 hours and the total cases are in the low single digits. We should be done with all this well before getting back to San Pedro on Tuesday.

Today, a little after 11:00 A.M., we crossed the equator, reentering the Northern Hemisphere, changing seasons from Fall to Spring.

Yup - there it is, in yellow again - you can see that the spray from the ship washed it out a bit - the bump seemed less severe from south to north

Google Maps confirmed that we were right on the equator

At 11:12, we went from 5 seconds South to 2.7 seconds North

If you think about it, one second of latitude equates to about 101 feet. When I grabbed the screenshot on the left, the bow of the ship and where I was standing were in two different hemispheres.

Since this was a sea day, we played trivia and Arlona continued ukulele lessons. We did win one trivia today and came close with another. Here are the misses:

• How many countries are in the Commonwealth of Nations (13, 33, 52)?
• We never heard of it - it was 52 (although really, it is 54 - one trivia host always has incorrect answers)
• In hieroglyphics, the decorated eye represents the eye of what Egyptian god?
• We guessed Ra, but it was Horus
• What is the rarest M&M color?
• Supposedly brown
• What is the world's largest rodent?
• Capybara - we should have known this as we saw them in Australia a few months ago
• How many time zones are in Russia?
• We should have known 11 but we guessed 13
• What is known as the Jewel of the Solar System?
• Saturn, because of its rings
• What is the only vegetable that is also a flower?
• We guessed artichoke which is correct, but they wanted broccoli - also correct, but the question was a bad one as multiple flowers are also vegetables
• What Polynesian island is known as The Gathering Place (Tahiti, Oahu, Maui, New Zealand)?
• Oahu - we guessed Maui
• Gonggar airport is the highest in the world (it's not) - where is it?
• Tibet - technically, it is the 5th or 6ths highest airport - another poor question

Today, to mark the equator crossing, the crew had a tug-of-war competition, pitting different departments against each other. In the end, it came down to the galley team versus the bridge team. The galley team won easily, to a rousing cheer from other crew members as well as the passengers. It was all good fun and nice seeing crew members get to let their hair down and have some fun.

Yesterday, another passenger posted a photo of a bird who was hitching a ride on their deck. It turns out that it was our next-door neighbor. Today, I was on the deck, at the rail looking at the water, and sure enough, it was still there on their deck, just hanging out.

We sat down to do some reading. A little while later, it popped up from under the divider wall between our balconies. It slapped its big webbed feet down with authority as it walked across the deck, right next to Arlona to take a look into our room, then back out, under the next wall, and around the front of the ship.

Walking onto our deck

It didn't care in the least that we were sitting right there

Checking out our cabin

Heading out to the next cabin and the front of the ship

Based on the shape of its head and beak, I think it is some breed of petrel, but I won't swear by it.

I was looking out at the water after the petrel left and saw that flying fish were out and about. At one point, a group that had to number at least 200, perhaps more, all went airborne at the same time. It was easily the most we've seen at one time. I was able to capture a few of them with the camera.

Can you see all seven of them?

Four here, plus the one that just splashed in

Three more

As we were enjoying a pre-dinner drink, this guy stopped by and said "Hi".

This is Ante from Guest Services - he was the one who took care of our early issues on this cruise - a good guy who cares about the customer experience

Our dinner team helped us get through a good, but quick dinner so we could make tonight's show, magician Jason Bird.

The show was OK - things we have seen multiple times before, but it was light and full of humor. It wasn't the best we've seen, but it was still fun.

We enjoyed a nightcap as we watched a game show featuring two teams of passengers taking on a few challenges with song lyrics, Jenga, putting a string of movies in chronological order. These are always good for a laugh.

Tomorrow will be sea day 4/8. We'll see what tomorrow holds.