20250206 Seabourn Sojourn Grand Africa Cruise Day 73/96 - Sea Day

Grand Africa Cruise Trip Day 73/96 - Sea Day Menagerie and Pirates of The Gulf of Guinea

It was sea day 4/6 - counting today, we have three more sea days to reach Benin. We were surprised because we slept in this morning. It was surprising since we moved the clocks back an hour last night, so it was like double sleeping in. That was nice.

After a quick breakfast, we went and played Baggo. Today, Nick & Rhys really mixed things up putting the boards at 45-degree angles and 90-degree angles. That forced accurate throws or the bags just slid off. After two rounds, it came down to a two-person playoff between the two high scorers, Arlona....and me. Arlona went first. Then I, being the gentleman, but unfortunately a really competitive gentleman, threw better and won again today.

We amassed our menagerie for some photos. 

We've won three of all the animals, puffin, cruising bear, polar bear, and penguin chick

They wanted to get silly

This morning, they conducted a unique crew drill - anti-piracy. We are heading into an area where there has been increased pirate activity. We got to hear all the announcements but guests didn't have to participate. In the event of an actual pirate encounter, guests have to exit staterooms, enter the hallway, and sit on the floor. We hope to never hear those announcements in anything other than a drill scenario.

Trivia went OK today, but the current leaders are simply unstoppable. We can't complain - they're just that good. Our misses today:

• What song contains the lyrics, "Shame on you, you're crying in bed."?
• We guessed Careless Whisper by George Michael, but it was Big Girls Don't Cry
• In Back To The Future, what were the two names of Doc Brown's dogs?
• We guessed Einstein and Newton - it was Einstein (1985 and later) and Copernicus (1955)
• Starting in the upper left and going clockwise, what are the four colors in the Microsoft Windows logo - extra points for getting the order correct
• We got red, green, and yellow but included white, missing blue- the order is red, green, yellow, blue
• Correctly spell "Azerbaijan"
• We spelled it Azerbijan, missing the second "a"
• How old was Napoleon when he was named a General of the Army?
• We guessed 23 - he was 24

Today's bonus question was fun - we successfully got all ten items, but I'll include it, just for fun. Identify the following ten food brand logos.

1. Subway
2. Kellogg's
3. M&Ms
4. McDonald's
5. Toblerone
6. Cadbury
7. Oreo
8. Ben & Jerry's
9. Heinz
10. Domino's

Arlona was back at watercolors in today's art workshops. Here are her works from today.

The inspiration is on top and her art is on the bottom

We competed with our team in Name That Tune this afternoon. Today's game had a theme - TV theme songs. Nick played a snippet of a TV theme song and we had to identify the TV show. We wound up topping the other teams, winning our second contest in a row with 20 out of a possible 25 points.

We went from there directly to this afternoon's port talk about Benin and Togo, our next two ports of call. The next stop was the Observation Bar for pre-dinner drinks. We ate a little later tonight as we waited for the Observation Bar's singer and guitar performer, Robert, to finish his set and join us.

We listen to him perform every evening in the Observation Bar - he is quite talented and has mastered the art of playing so that people can enjoy his music while still being able to converse

We had a lovely dinner getting to know him better. He is a humble and gracious man and a pleasure to spend time with. Our dinner was once again made better because of the exceptional service provided by our favorite server, Kristof.

He was absolutely giddy tonight as he got his official disembarkation notice for February 28 - the same day we leave the ship - for a well-deserved vacation

We attended tonight's performance by comedian, Ralph Harris. He was funny, engaging, relatable, and amazingly in this day and age, clean. There were lots of laughs and many more nods of recognition from his stories about family and age. We enjoyed it.

Tomorrow, we'll be crossing the equator again, this time from south to north There will be a second equator crossing ceremony since new pollywogs are on the ship. They will need to confess their sins and beg King Neptune for safe passage.