Sunday, July 31, 2022
We had heard that a bagpiper and some local dancers would be performing at the pier before our sail-away, so we made sure we were on our balcony. The piper and the dancers were very good. It appeared that the dancers ranged in age from elementary school to teenagers. I know they had to be cold, but they performed about 30 minutes.
When our ship horn sounded, the dancers followed the piper all the way to the end of the pier waving to us as we pulled away from the dock. We all waved, clapped, and cheered back at them. It was a very kind send-off to us.
Once we set sail, we went to the Ocean Bar and then on to dinner in the main dining room. Tonight, I had the lamb chops for my main course and Chuck had the beef tenderloin.
Once the Ocean Bar band finished their first set, we went to the main stage show – another comedian. His name was Kelly McDonald and I recognized him as a performer on our South Pacific cruise. I thought he had funnier jokes on that cruise. To round out the evening, we listened to the last set of the Ocean Bar band and played some slots.
We set our clocks back another hour so my getting up at 6:45 was not really an accomplishment. We decided to have breakfast in the dining room for a change of pace. We had a pleasant conversation with four other passengers.
I perused the shops again as we still have some onboard credit to use or lose. Nothing caught my eye. I then worked on typing up some of my notes while Chuck played some cards.
At 1:00, I went to a talk by a new presenter – Dr. Helena Aves. Her talk was on glaciers, fjords, ice, and snow. She is a geologist and a cultural historian so the talk was very technical and much of it was over my head. She discussed the many ice ages we have had, the change in the patterns of the Gulf stream, and had a number of charts on ice core data. I just thought I was going to see pretty photos of glaciers, fjords, ice, and snow. Oh, well. Like for all the talks, the main stage area was packed, and she had a lively Q/A session.
The main stage is all the way forward on the ship. During the talk, I could feel the ship having a lot of movement. I knew the seas must be getting rougher which is to be expected in the North Sea. However, it was a little disconcerting to come back to the room and realize that your balcony is wet, not because of rain, but because of the spray from the waves hitting the ship – especially because our room is on the 6th floor.
I hoped the wave action wouldn’t get any worse during the night.
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