Sea Days

Friday, October 28th - Saturday, October 29th

Friday, October 28th
Amazing Amazon
Day 4
M/S Regatta
Cruising the Atlantic Ocean
Sunny
Air Temperature: 77 Degrees
Sea Temperature: 87 Degrees

Saturday, October 29th
Amazing Amazon
Day 5
M/S Regatta
Cruising the Atlantic Ocean
Sunny
Air Temperature: 82 Degrees
Sea Temperature: 90 Degrees

With a few days at sea under our belts, we are settling back into the cruise life.

The weather has been great, but the humidity is building. The sea temperature exceeds the air temperature by about ten degrees. Trippy!!!

The ship is in fine shape and the cabin is cozy comfortable, a place for everything and everything in its place. For those of you familiar with the Pareto Principle, our cabin number is 8020.

We are still recovering from 15 miles of walking around New York and pounding a thousand steps down into, and up out of, the subway, but we are getting back into our exercise routines. 13 laps around the track on Deck 10 constitutes a nautical mile. It's like rush hour in the morning as people power walk to stave off death for just one more day. Laps are never fun, but it's hard not to smile when every turn delivers another view of the deep blue sea and the translucent blue sky all the way to the horizon. Tres is doing water aerobics in the fish bowl pool on Deck 9. Not deep enough and it sloshes around like a drunken sailor when the ship is under way, but it's a good workout.

The food is exactly what we remember from two years ago onboard Nautica. The Grand Dining Room is not very good, The Waves Grill and Terrace buffet are fine, the prime steakhouse Polo Grill is good, and the Italian food at Toscana is excellent. We already have some favorites on the dining crew. Peter is a sweetheart of a guy from Hungary. He is an assistant waiter in Toscana and he parrots very request with "Yes, please." Adorable!!! The service is sincere and very much appreciated, but it can be suffocating, especially in the Terrace. I really don't need to have someone carry my plate from the buffet to the table. If ever I do, I will know I have taken too much food.

Butler Rosario from Calcutta, Cabin Stewardess Joycelyn, and Steward Armando, are hard at work all day and well into the night. They are responsible for 24 cabins. It's unimaginable.

We recognize several of the crew and our fellow passengers from the last cruise. Raquel from the shore excursions team on Nautica is on Regatta now. She is from Brazil so she will be a great tour guide on the Amazon. The demographics of this trip are very different, though. The Route of the Ancient Traders attracted an empty-nester baby-boomer crowd. The Amazing Amazon cohort is the last remains of the greatest generation. If cruises are for the "newly-wed and nearly dead," the newly-weds must be on another ship. And so are the children. Not a single child to be seen or heard.

With one engine down for maintenance, we are limping along on just three. We are making way at considerably less than the 20 knot cruising speed Regatta is capable of, and moderately high seas toss us around without the speed to cut through the chop, but the itinerary has not slipped any further. No one on board has yet addressed this issue, which we will have to force at some point.

We are faithfully attending the enrichment lectures on the schedule for every day at sea. Colonel Gerald M. McCormack provides nautical, historical, and political context for the cruise. He is an entertaining speaker, delivering his remarks extemporaneously, but he does occasionally misspeak or lose his train of thought. Former journalist Tiiu Lukk talks about the natural environments we are exploring. She has stunning visuals, but she reads a script word for word from her computer. Dr. S. Edward Josse, consultant in clinical forensic medicine, is impressively credentialed and a pioneering force in the discipline. His dry wit provides comic relief to his otherwise graphic and disturbing anecdotes. We have learned something so far from each of them, sometimes in our sleep.

With Bermuda behind us, Regatta is headed for the Caribbean on our way to the Amazon. From North to South, we will make calls on St. Barts, St. Lucia, and Trinidad (Red). From South to North on the return voyage, we will stop at Barbados, Martinique, Virgin Gorda of the British Virgin Islands, and the Dominican Republic on the island of Hispaniola (Yellow).

We know that this trip can't measure up to the last, not for us onboard, nor for you reading along at home, but we are having a great time, as we always do. Every day brings a new adventure and we appreciate your interest. The Internet connection is much more reliable than it was two years ago, but just as expensive. We will keep you close as we continue to steam toward the Amazing Amazon.