Today was just a relaxing day at sea, when we could do as much or as little as we wanted. We got up about 8.30am (a bit later due to the lost hour!!) and I decided not to go to breakfast, just eating the fruit that was provided in our stateroom; Trevor brought me back some coffee from the buffet.
Hey, if this sounds identical to my first paragraph for yesterday’s entry, that’s because it’s Sunday, 19th May all over again – yes, it is Groundhog Day! We are experiencing that strange phenomenon of living through the same date twice, after crossing the IDL. We hadn’t quite reached 180˚ longitude yet; that would come later on today.
Felt really, really tired when I got up; I think all these 23-hour days are catching up with me. We went to breakfast up in the Windows Café as usual, then ventured out on deck to see what the weather was like. As the Quest was going along at a fair old rate of knots, it was windy and fairly cold again, and much more comfortable below decks, as we could tell from the empty sunloungers and deserted pool deck. 😊
At 10 o’clock we went along to another of Dale Pollock’s lectures about the film industry which was as interesting as ever (even for a non-film buff like me). But afterwards, sheer fatigue overtook me, and we went back to 6009 at 11 o’clock and slept for two hours solid, waking up around lunchtime.
We sluggishly awoke and rubbed our eyes and pulled ourselves round, then went for dinner in the self-service buffet where I enjoyed some cold cuts and salad and a glass of wine. Then we pottered around a bit until it was time to go to Round 2 of the “Battle of the Sexes” game. We presented all the items we had to bring on the list, including a pair of “red high heels”. The nearest I had was some mostly red Irregular Choice shoes, with a gorgeously big red bow and red patterned upper, with a gold glittery heel. The men tried to get them disqualified, saying they weren’t “red” shoes (they had nothing even similar) but the judge accepted them, and the ladies in the team cooed over them and admired them and asked where I’d bought them. As I mentioned on our last cruise (in which my IC shoes featured prominently), I should be a salesperson for IC – I’d do very well! 😊
The game finished with the ladies behind the men by over 100 points – oh dear!
Afterwards, Trevor and I (who were still feeling very tired!) just relaxed and read in our stateroom, watching the mesmeric sight of the flat calm Pacific Ocean gliding past our floor-to-ceiling balcony doors. We felt small and insignificant against the sheer vastness of this ocean, which has a bigger surface area than all the land masses in the world put together.
It was then time to go along to The Den to take part in the usual afternoon quizzes. There was just Trevor and me in the team today (we didn’t see any of our regular team-mates) and the first theme was international questions, which we did OK in (scoring 13/20) but in the music quiz we did absolutely appallingly. The questions were all based on Broadway musicals and you had to name the song, plus the musical it came from. We scored a cringe-worthy 8/40. ☹
We enjoyed a couple of drinks afterwards, then returned to our stateroom to get showered and changed for dinner. While we were there, we switched on the TV and noticed that the Azamara Quest, on her unwavering route to Dutch Harbor, Aleutian Islands, had suddenly changed course and was heading in a south-easterly direction instead of north-east.
Tonight’s buffet theme in the Windows Café was European, and there were dishes from France, Spain, Britain and Italy among others. I enjoyed a bit plate of tasty paella, which included clams, prawns and calamari and was delicious.
The captain’s voice then came over the public address system to advise that the Quest was going to make an unscheduled stop in the tiny town of Adak, due to a medical emergency affecting one of the passengers. The ship was due to drop anchor at approximately 6.00am, and the passenger would be disembarked by lifeboat. Oh dear, what a thing to happen to you on holiday! ☹
After dinner, we repaired to the Cabaret Lounge where, once again, we were hugely entertained by the singing and piano-playing talents of Tom Seals; he was excellent once again. Apparently he’d appeared on The Voice at home; I will have to look him up on You Tube and see if anyone ‘turned’ for him. (EDIT: No-one turned for him, which is a shame.) Whatever the outcome of The Voice, however, it would seem that his appearance on national TV had played a big part in getting him lots of work. 😊
After the show we went back to our stateroom to see if we were in the western hemisphere yet; looking at the navigational information we could see that we were at 53˚ north and 179˚ 55’ W – yes, we had indeed crossed the 180th meridian.
We were quite tired (!!) and Trevor had the beginnings of a cold, so instead of going up to the Living Room, we each got ourselves a nightcap which we took back to our stateroom around 9.00pm, and relaxed and read and watched TV until it was time to settle down, after enjoying Sunday, 19th May 2019 twice. 😊
Inevitably, we had to put our clocks and watches forward one hour again (!) but, confusingly, we are now 10 hours behind British time instead of being ahead.