Today was a quiet day with a good amount of down time. We took our time getting to breakfast – one of the luxuries of a sea day.
Crystal has guest lecturers onboard speaking on a variety of topics - everything from current events, to talks on upcoming ports of call, to marine biology, to travel in general. Today I attended a lecture by Martin and Tanis Jordan, a British couple who apparently have no more good sense than to have spent their lives in adventure travel. I mean, extreme adventure. Take today’s “trip” as an example. They planned a 4-month canoe trip traveling upstream in Surinam, what was once Dutch Guiana, on the northern coast of South America. On their 5th day after negotiating some rapids, a caiman (South American alligator) bumped their canoe causing it to overturn, Martin was knocked unconscious in the water, Tanis got pinned against a tree by the rushing water and worried about piranhas, Martin regains consciousness and washes ashore, spends an hour going up the river bank calling Tanis’ name, finds her in the water, breaks off a tree sapling and extends it to her, pulls her ashore, they hug, walk downstream 5 hours to a village they had passed earlier, spend a couple of days drying out their cameras and plucking up their courage to continue on, and finally hook up with a man they happen to know who happens to arrive with a large boat and plans to go up river to conduct a census of the native people living on the river’s edge. Are you wondering what happened to their canoe, food, and belongings? Canoe was found near the village split and needing repair, most of their food spoiled by the water, some clothing recovered, camera and film salvaged. Beyond that, they had very little. They slept in hammocks and caught fish for eating. The Discovery Channel actually featured them in a tv episode, complete with reenactment of their harrowing river saga. And all of this told in their very dry, rather matter-of-fact British delivery, with the same tone of voice as if they were reading us the dinner menu.
Sounds like a few days I had when my daughters were small. Just kidding!
This afternoon I decided to do a reenactment of my own – the scene on Titanic where young Jack stands at the bow stretches his arms wide and yells, “I’m king of the world!” So I stepped out midship on Promenade deck 7 and headed toward the front of the ship. As I rounded the front corner, I was hit with gale-force winds that almost knocked me over. It was all I could do to stand up against the force of the wind, so I whimpered a little and gave up my mission. Once I rounded the next corner and headed down the other side of the ship, the wind wasn’t so bad. I actually finished one lap around the ship and went back inside. The rest of the day was a bad hair day.
I had dinner tonight with Brian and Judy in Prego, the fabulous Italian restaurant on Crystal Serenity. After dinner I went for a short time to a piano concert. The pianist played one of my favorites – Rachmaninoff’s 18th Variation from his Variations on a Theme of Paganini.
Tomorrow we cross the Equator. There is some kind of celebration planned for 11:15a shipboard time/8:15a Central (home) time. King Neptune and his Mermaids will be there to help us celebrate. I think I’ll take my camera…
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