Friday, Jan 25 - Day 5 of holiday and Day 3 on board Island Princess

The day started as usual with some time in the games room doing my Internet connectivity time and writing before we ventured to Horizon for breakfast.  The challenge these days is to eat something without eating it all.  There is a wide selection of breakfast fare and it does require some discipline to eat moderately.  We managed to forage for some tasty morsels and then we found seats a table in the bow area where we could look south and see the sea.  That was it - just sea in all directions.  We could also see weather in the distance but it dissipated as we approached.   We ate alone and chatted about the trivial aspects of our planned day.  I think we had one thing to do all day.

After our breakfast we walked out on the 14th deck and enjoyed the warmth of the sun.  It was a clear and perfect day with a brisk SW wind and small swells in the sea. Freddi had found the mini-putt (Princess Links) and wanted to play a game.  We arrived to find that there was only one couple there so we decided to give it a crack.  The course was quite different from others we have seen on ships and it is hard to take it seriously but the competitive nature continues to flow even under these conditions.  We played our 9 holes and agreed that we had played our best efforts and Freddi had beat me.  I was ready for another challenge another day.....

Large Screen viewing

Since it was a nice day and there seemed to be some recliners available on the Lido Deck we decided to sit and read and catch a few rays.  It felt very nice to feel the heat of the sun.  Somewhere in the background the quirky movie Breakfast at Tiffany's was playing (George Peppard and Audrey Hepburn) in the outdoor theatre.  It was like being at a drive-in and I watched some of it while reading my book.  Time slipped away and after a couple of hours we realized that the south sun had managed to burn our blanched skin that has been covered up since September.   We retreated to the shadows for a pizza lunch and better understand how badly we had been burned. 

At 3 Pm we went to a lecture (a very well attended lecture) about the building of the Panama Camal.  It was very informative and portrayed a picture of Government mismanagement and partisan politics even back in those days.  I guess that should not be a surprise considering the nature of politics.  Regardless of the mismanagement by the French, the US came to the rescue and took on the challenge of making the canal real.  The brief history lessons was interesting and put some perspective around this incredible construction.  I look forward to seeing it in real time in only a few days.

Following Dr.'s orders!

After the lecture we returned to the Lido deck to enjoy the sunset off in the western horizon.  There were a few clouds so it provided a nice array of colour and we had left our cameras in the stateroom.

We ventured down to the Bordeaux Dining Room around 7 pm only to be told that we had a 20 minute wait.  we had neglected to make a reservation again.  So off to the bar where we ordered a couple of drinks to sit out the wait.  It actually was much less that 20 minutes and we elected to join a larger table rather than eat alone.  We were escorted to a table with two elderly ladies from California.  They were very charming and both were around 80 years old.  They had lost their husbands in the last year and had been unable to convince then to do the Panama Canal tour so they decided to do it after they died.  They were quite different in appearance and character but they had been friends for years.  Loreena, the smaller frail one, was soft spoken and dignified in appearance and speech.  Phyllis, fuller version of womanhood, was very refined but also quite outspoken as she had some pretty thought through positions on things such as politics and child rearing.  Both had been teachers and Freddi was able to converse with them on that topic and how that related to child rearing and parenting.  It was an energetic and animated discussion.  We enjoyed dinner with these ladies.  I enjoyed a shrimp and scallop appetizer followed by a mahi mahi main dish.  Freddi enjoyed a green salad and a pasta dish that was of significant size.  Desserts were out of the question for most but I had to try the chocolate cookie covered in chocolate sauce with a dab of vanilla ice cream.  After our lingering dinner we wished the ladies well and we made our way back to the stateroom.  It had been a pretty peaceful day.