March 17-20: Second Four Days of Eight-Day Passage to San Diego, CA

 MARCH 17: Fifth Sea Day

Blue skies, warm sun, calm seas, and nothing but open ocean in every direction made it the kind of day that you wanted to ask the captain to just steam around in a slow circle.

A morning glance at Marine Traffic revealed that we were not the only ships out here. In fact, during the afternoon, I spotted what appeared to be an eastbound car carrier. 

Having jumped ahead another hour yesterday, the sun was a bit lower in the sky when I went out on our veranda before breakfast. While today's temperature was delightful, the heat's intensity is gone. Over the past couple of days, the "UV index has dropped from 10 to 8. By evening, the northern side of the tropics was only about 7° away.

MARCH 18: Sixth Sea Day

view from our table in the main dining room yesterday evening

It was noticeably cooler today, although still in the 70s.

Pam had fun at a fashion show that recruited passengers to model. Three of our boat buddies were among them, their husbands dutifully in attendance. Pam not being in the show, I was otherwise engaged.

Pam & I had a tasty dinner in one of the specialty restaurants, then went to the theatre for a show.

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One of the phone apps that I use a lot during cruises is Navionics Boating. Preloaded with charts covering your trip, it works offline. If you are not a boater who enjoys nautical information about your location, this app is probably a bit pricey.

Another of my go-to apps is My GPS Location. This one gives me lots of information on location, speed, height, etc. It also shows your location on a map (not a chart). You can also keep a list of favorite locations.

MARCH 19: Seventh Sea Day

cool this morning, but possibly more sun than yesterday

We set our clocks ahead one last time at noon today, putting us on Pacific Daylight Time.

This morning, the midship pool area was adorned with towel art. 

The housekeeping staff that tends to our staterooms has new towel art on the bed each night. This was a fun way for them to demonstrate the extent of their skills. At the conclusion of the display, the staff paraded in to loud applause.

Later in the day, we gathered around the pool to witness the results of a boat-building competition. The boats were judged on four criteria. 

1. Lookism. 
2. Buoyancy in the swimming pool. 
3. How much cargo could it carry without sinking? The cargo was 12-oz cans.
4. Whether the boat could handle the turbulence of the hot tub.

The event judges were the captain and two other senior officers.

The further into the afternoon we got, enjoying the cooler but delightful weather, the less our resolve to go back to the stateroom to pack. We did a little in the evening before going to dinner, but generally agreed that procrastination was the order of the day. Maybe elves would silently do it for us during the night. Hey, it was worth a shot.

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Continuing yesterday's topic of apps I use on a cruise, Marine Traffic is a great way to see what ships are around you, particularly those in sight.

I use the app GeoTracker when in port. I start it when I leave the ship, letting it run in the background throughout my time ashore. While similar to Google Maps timeline, I like it better. It is important to remember to shut it off after returning aboard. If you use it, also keep an eye on battery consumption as it can vary between devices.

MARCH 20: Eighth Sea Day

Today, we had to pack our bags and have them in the passageway by 10:00 PM. We will next see them on the pier waiting for us to take them through Customs. 

Rather than having this chore hanging over our heads all day, we did most of it this morning. Packing to go home is so much easier than confronting all the decisions about what to pack for a trip in the limited space available. 

• Step 1: Get everything into the suitcases, paying attention to potential breakables. 
  
  
• Step 2: If the suitcases close and aren't over-weight, the job is done.

Yesterday, I wrote that we had procrastinated on doing a significant amount of packing. While correct, we had already done considerable pre-packing.

We use packing cubes. During the past week, after finishing with something like snorkeling gear, we packed it back into its cube. Other things we had kept sorted in packing cubes throughout the trip. These modest efforts gave us a running start at what was still initially a daunting job after living in our stateroom for five weeks.

On the far left, playing the guitar is Rio, our cabana steward for one day

On the Lido deck, it was the turn of the food service staff to parade by, gathering at one end of the pool for a group shot. It was fun to cheer them on.

About 3:00 PM, the foghorn began to blow. Looking around, a thick fog had quietly engulfed the ship. Maybe "quietly" is superfluous; has anyone ever heard of noisy fog?

During the day, we said goodbye to several crew members who had been particularly attentive and friendly during the course of the crew. The last one was Firdaus, our cabana steward from Jakarta, Indonesia. (It was his birthday we celebrated on March 14.) He went above and beyond to be sure we were enjoying our cruise. Being much taller than we were, he politely bent forward for this picture.

We had a final dinner in the main dining room, wandered around the ship a bit, then returned to our rooms to put debarkation and shipping tags on our bags. This was supposed to go quickly, but of course, it did not because that would have been too easy. Nevertheless, all the bags were out in the passageway awaiting pickup well before the prescribed time.

It is now nearly 10:20 PM, and the foghorn is still blowing for five seconds every two minutes. For those with staterooms near the bow of the ship, it may be a noisy night of quiet fog.