Double-day post this time, as we were at sea and you’ve mostly already heard about what happens on sea days: brekkie, baggo, lunch, trivia, choir, dinner, show. There was a morning lecture about getting better photos with your smartphone. Didn’t really learn anything new, other than the existence of this free editor that I’ll check out once I get home and have a phone.

Baggo went well. I adopted the captain’s unusual “reverse claw” throwing style and whaddaya know - scores improved greatly. Got 950 points for the team (!) including two sinkers.

There was a Mexican Lunch, which ended up being mostly tacos and a chimichanga. All was good. Rob liked the guacamole.

There was a nice Virginia ham on the dinner buffet, but the star of the show (for me anyway) was the bowl of seafood gumbo. I was skeptical, being out in the middle of the Indian Ocean, thousands of miles from New Orleans, but it was actually really good!

The evening entertainer was Mark Hussey, a classical/jazz/flamenco guitarist. He played mostly classical, but he’s got another show in a few days, maybe we’ll get the flamenco stuff then. He was very good.

I mentioned several days ago that I’d only ever seen a complete rainbow two or three times before. Well, this morning had another one, only it was a double. Very nice! (the horizon line is a little wonky, as I was doing a panoramic photo while standing on a moving ship)

Double rainbow! OMG what does it mean? I’m pretty sure there’s a song.

Almost as impressive as the rainbow was the awesome ‘donut station’ at brekkie this morning.

There have been red-footed booby birds (I’m not making that up) hanging out around the ship. I tried to get some shots, but they usually tuck their feet in pretty tight while they’re flying. They hang out looking to feed on the flying fish that the ship disturb as it plows through the water. I still haven’t seen the flying fish on this trip (although I’ve seen them on other cruises).

Had a terrible outing of baggo today, but it was still fun. Our team was 1050 points ahead after round two and we ended up losing by 2000 points. Ugh.

Our trivia team is thinking about adopting the name “Dirty Dozen” as it seems we consistently get 12 points (out of 15). True today as well.

Had dinner with new friend Tom from Palm Springs at the Chef’s Table - the menu was La Route Des Indes (the road to India), but it wasn’t about butter chicken or saag aloo. The amuse bouche was a carrot/cardamom chilled soup, then the first course was spicy tuna tataki.

Main course was a beef tenderloin with “warm spices”. I liked it a lot.

All in all, it was my least favourite of the Chef’s Table meals we’ve had, but we had a good time anyway, getting to know our new friend.

The evening’s entertainment wasn’t a concert, but a dance party by the pool. We decided to pass.

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