April 15, 2024 Sea Day # 2

Hopefully today will not have any medical emergency or person overboard, although we got to just outside the reef surrounding Bermuda about 6:30 p.m., for the medical evacuation of a critically ill passenger that the captain announced yesterday.

The 8 a.m. temperature was 19°C. That morning temperature seems to remain on the information TV channel all day. There was no breakfast in the main dining room today, instead there was Caribbean Brunch from 9:30 a.m to 12:30 p.m.

We had a quick light breakfast in Lido then walked the jogging track on Deck 11 before descending to Deck 2 to go to B.B. King’s Blues Club for a 30 minute Line Dance lesson. We encountered Mary whom we had met on embarkation day. She had attended the chef’s talk that had just ended. There were over 40 people squeezed onto the four meter by five meter dance floor. And about the same number observing from the venue’s seats or looking down from the third floor. The class started with a “warmup” Electric Slide line dance. The dance of the day was to the tune “September”. With the right leg - two forward taps, two back taps, then one tap forward, one tap back, side tap and an angled hitch, then to the right - side together side hitch, clap, then to the left side together side clap, clap. Right elbow forward, left elbow forward, three step 180° turn then repeat the elbows forward & turn to face front again, slide right, slide left; then repeat the pattern again. At the end of the class we did a simple line dance - to the right four side togethers, then repeated to the left, right heel tap, left heel tap and repeat and an eight count quarter turn to the left, then repeat the whole pattern.

Step count so far was 5963.

We were ready to change and go to the Caribbean Brunch. We arrived at a lull between breakfast time and lunch time. We sat with Mary and Alan from Cincinnati. They were able to fly to Fort Lauderdale directly from Cincinnati. Other daily activities were exercise classes including stationary bikes in the fitness centre and Tai Chi by the main pool; Pickleball Instruction up on deck 11 in the tennis courts; Origami folding; Colouring for Adults; Beginner and Intermediate Bridge instruction in the morning and duplicate bridge in the afternoon; a flower arranging demonstration; different jewelry seminars; an art auction; trivia; cornball at the Sports Court and a Ping Pong tournament on the Lido balcony; a DJ playing music poolside in the afternoon plus afternoon tea. Again we took a couple of pictures of some of the stairwell art work.

The captain’s announcement mentioned that the medical evacuation near Bermuda would occur around 6:30 p.m. and since noon yesterday we had travelled 458 nautical miles. There would be another clocks forward adjustment at noon tomorrow.

At 2 p.m. in B.B. King’s Blues Club was a presentation by Paul Eschenfelder called “Flying Today” about how the design of passenger planes has changed and flying the world’s busiest and longest air routes. We worked in some reading time, then had a drink at Happy Hour before joining, Heather, Sharon, Lois and Eric for 5 p.m. dinner. Heather mentioned in texting from her daughter in Vancouver that the missing crew member discovery on Saturday morning was part of the CBC news. We excused ourselves after the main course, skipping dessert to go to the 6 p.m. Ballroom Dance hour. There were seven or eight couples dancing at various times to music played by a DJ. At 6:45 p.m. we left to go to the Lido pool for the Captain’s Welcome cocktail party for level 3, 4 and 5 mariners. On the way, we noticed a crowd, on the promenade deck port side, watching the medical evacuation. There also had been an announcement at 6:30 p.m. that whales had been spotted near the Bermuda reefs. The medical transfer went smoothly and the ship returned to the route to take us to the Azores over the next 4.5 days, for a scheduled arrival of 8 a.m on April 20th.

Tonight’s entertainment was Sydney Phipps, Casey Berry, Jacob Tischler & Company in All That! A colourful show with singers singing familiar tunes from the 60s and up. The dancers had about seven costume changes. There were two shows one at 7:30 and another at 9 p.m. The first show is usually packed so we elected to attend the later show arriving 15 minutes early and having to search for a seat.

Total steps today were over 13,868.