Actually, it can be as busy or not at all, depending on what you feel like in the moment.
This is our second day in a row crossing the middle of the Gulf of Mexico since leaving Cozumel. Tomorrow we will be going through the Panama Canal and docking on the other side to spend the following day in Panama City.
Sometime late in the evening, “The Viking Daily” is published for the following day. Here is today’s edition:
On other Viking cruises, it has been printed and sitting on the bed after the room stewards turned down the bed for the night. But on this cruise, a printed copy (one 11”x15”folded piece of paper) is delivered only if requested. Otherwise there is a picture of it on the Viking app that I download to my pictures, and I can look at it whenever I want to during the day.
In the photo above, the upper right is the front page, the upper left is the back page, and the bottom two are the inside facing pages.
So, yesterday I think I created my early morning routine while Ken stays sleeping (he’s NOT an early bird – unless he’s going fishing at 5:00 am!). Unfortunately, I am an early bird and with the time change from Daylight Savings Time, I have been waking up at 4:00 am (we are still on Eastern Time). Sometimes I can go back to sleep for another hour, but that’s not guaranteed. Then I play solitaire on my phone or check email or go over “The Daily” to see what to do until about 6:00.
Our “stateroom” is near the bow on the starboard (right) side, and just a few doors forward, I can access the open bow, so I head there first to feel the weather – hot, muggy, and windy (that’s every day and night in the Caribbean!).
Up two exterior stairs is the Promenade Deck with a walking track along the railing. Unfortunately, since this ship is smaller than the ocean ships, you can’t get around the bow, so I just do the “U” back and forth until I’m bored with it, stopping to watch the Booby birds flying right next to the ship, catching flying fish that we scare out of the water!
I wake up hungry, so I’m starving by now, so I go to the World Café and get a cup of green tea and a small pain au chocolat, find a quiet spot by the windows and enjoy the sea from the air conditioned comfort with nice background music… (In fact, that’s what I’m doing right now while writing this!)
So, continuing yesterday, there was a weather balloon launch at 7:00 am on the aft deck, so all the interested people were gathered one deck up to watch.
It was really windy, so it was quite a tussle for the scientists to hang onto it while walking it over to the edge! After a countdown from five, they let go, and it zipped out of their hands and off the starboard side in a flash. It was tossed and turned every which way in the wind behind us, and at one point, it started heading toward the water, but just in time, it got some lift and headed up to the stratosphere, and it was on its way safely.
That balloon was one of hundreds or thousands that were launched worldwide at the very same time (0:00 GMT) yesterday. It was tracked live in “Expedition Central” until about 9:15 am, when it passed through the ozone layer and then expanded in the stratosphere and popped.
It measured temperature, altitude, humidity, air pressure, and location (and could be more…!). The balloon is made of a vegetable latex and starts disintegrating on contact with the water. The small payload box attached to it is also made from biodegradable material that felt and looked like packing styrofoam. The small metal probe that collected the data would rust and eventually disappear. The only other thing was a tiny circuit board inside.
We stopped by there on our way to breakfast to see all the “squiggly lines” of data that it was still collecting and was probably going to pop within about 10-15 minutes, around 9:25 am.
The rest of the two days at sea were taken up with lectures, going to the hot tub, then sauna, then a quick scrubdown with snow in the Snow Room before drying off and dressing.
And, of course, there is always delicious food available somewhere! Scandinavian delicacies in Mamsen’s, burgers and dogs at the Pool Grill, World Café has food from wherever we are located, and then there two reservation-only sitdown restaurants – Manfredi’s with Italian food and The Restaurant with a changing menu – all included in our fare. The only challenge is to control ourselves so we don’t come home with 20 extra pounds!
There is also an exercise room and open room with mats available for yoga (haven’t gotten there yet…!) or massages and other Scandinavian body work is always available to schedule and pay extra for.
So, that’s why I didn’t get this blog finished yesterday, and we are now on Wednesday traversing Gatun Lake after going through the Atlantic side locks in Panama… More on that next!
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