As I write this we are eight days out.
My goal in packing was to have interchangeable garb that was all wash and wear except maybe for the suit jacket. I managed to do that but how is that working? So far, pretty good. I note that I have a “plainer” look than a number of the men on-board but that doesn’t particularly bother me. The use the knit polo shirt and clip-on tie under the suit coat for formal nights trick seemed to work just fine on the one formal night we’ve had so far (see attached photo from the dining room that night). I’ll know more tomorrow (Tuesday, 30 Jan) when we have our second formal night and a cocktail party with the ship’s Captain. I have an invitation to that (along with most everyone else I’ve talked with so it will not be an intimate affair).
Weather has warmed nicely as we travel further south. The days are in the low eighties and it’s quite comfortable out on deck in just a simple shirt (or none if you are sunning yourself). Since we are heading to the Equator and then into southern Summer I expect the temperature to be rising more; hopefully not too much (Australia is going in and out of heat waves I note from the BBC weather — BBC is one of the TV stations we get on the ship).
Not that it’s related to packing but I noted two interesting things today while I was standing at my balcony contemplating how anyone, way back when, could possibly get the idea to get in a canoe with just a few supplies and cast off into the really vast ocean in order to colonize some island you did not even know was there. I just can’t get that thought out of my head and wonder if I could ever do that. Anyhow, while staring out to sea I saw a sealed bottle floating by at about 16 knots (the ship’s speed). It was just floating there. Sadly, my camera was in on the bed and I did not have enough time to get it and take a shot before the bottle was far astern. I’ll just have to wonder if it was some long lost message floating until it washed up on a foreign shore or just garbage. (Having time to just stare and think does strange things to the mind. 🙂 )
The second was some little “things” that would now and again jump up just outside the ship’s bow wave and skitter across the sea for a bit leaving little dots on the water before they just stopped. Talking with a crew member a little while later I learned that these “things” were really flying fish. I’ve seen flying fish in the channel between Los Angeles and Catalina Island but those were fairly large. These were just little beasts and I did not recognize from eight decks up that there was a fish-shaped object involved. Could just be that the distance made them look small; but, either way, we have flying fish out here and they get scared when something big comes along and disturbs their way of life. I guess I would be scared too if I were one of them.
Enough for now. It’s almost 9pm and I have to go up one deck to the “King Kamehameha Festivals of The World” live event by the pool.