April 19, 2024 Sea Day #6

Sea Day #6 of 8. The ship spends nine hours at Ponta Delgada, Azores tomorrow. The temperature was steady today at 17°C with a sun cloud mix. The waves were a gentle one meter, but small white caps could be seen.

At “Coffee with Nick” at 9 a.m. in the B.B. King’s Blues Club, today’s guests were the four ship’s cadets who work in either the engine room or the bridge. They work eight to ten hours daily. They need to work and learn as cadets on a ship as part of the marine university training to earn bachelor degrees. The two male cadets attend the marine university in the Netherlands. They need to serve for 300 days over two or more contracts. The two female cadets attend the marine university in the Philippines, which requires their students to serve for 365 days over two or more contracts as cadets on ships. Once their time on any kind of ocean ships is complete and they graduate, they start their contracts as third officers. We had coffee and a cookie during the interviews which we enjoyed with Heather, from our evening dining table group. Heather air dropped a photo of us dancing the previous evening to me.

The three of us walked to the World Stage theatre for “Ask the Captain” at 10 a.m. Captain van Dreumel who, like most cruise ship captains, works three months on the ship, then is off for three months. After two or three years with a ship, captains are transferred to another ship in the fleet.

There was no breakfast or lunch in the dining room today. Instead, there was the Baltic & Scandinavian Brunch from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The entrées we chose from the menu were Älesund steak, thinly sliced, reindeer sausage & fried egg skillet and wild mushroom & tarragon crêpes.

The clocks went forward another hour at noon. Our time is now five hours ahead of the Central Time Zone.

The captain’s announcement at noon advised that since leaving Fort Lauderdale we had travelled 2,983 nautical miles. On the progress map the most western of the Azores islands it was only 268 nautical miles away. The ship should be docked by 8 a.m. tomorrow morning.

We took the Five Crowns game with us up to the Lido pool on Deck 9 to meet Susan for a game and chatting. With the extra on board credit that we received yesterday, we decided to buy an internet package for the rest of the cruise. That way, we will not need to take a laptop from the ship and look for Wi-Fi in the terminal building or at a café using some of our time in port to post the daily blog. So today there was one week of postings.

It was dressy evening for the dining rooms tonight, the second of three this cruise. Before dinner we went to “Cocktails with Nick” in the B.B. King’s Blues Club for his interview with presenter, Captain Paul Eschenfelder. We ran out of time for walking on the outside decks today.

Our whole table was present and Heather asked the assistant waiter, Pantasa, to take a picture of the group. From tonight’s special menu, we both chose the entrée, Beef Tenderloin and Jumbo Shrimp Newberg. We chose to have dessert with the group, before going to the Ballroom Dance Hour. The entertainers tonight were the quartet, Vox Futura. We skipped going to the show in favour of watching one of the movie on demand, Oppenheimer. Total steps = 8,751