June 11 – AT SEA, Cruising the Atlantic Ocean

we're not there yet

Weather – 25º, it’s another day of all 25s

Steps – ZERO! Or zero, if I believe my Apple watch. For

security letter

some reason, none of my ‘activities’ are registering. I wasn’t particularly ‘active’ today, but I wasn’t in a coma either. I definitely climbed at least 21 flights of stairs. We rarely take the elevator – basically never. We may not get a lot of steps some days, but we’re on those stairs a lot.

Humidity – 84%, my hair is getting bigger!

We are crossing back into the Northern hemisphere today (actually early tomorrow morning) AND it’s a full moon…I’m taking this as an auspicious sign. Today was our sixth equator crossing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the moon because of clouds. I’m I snuck outside last night to see it. We’re actually allowed outside, just in the dark.

Since leaving South African waters, we’ve been under heightened security measures. Nothing more than an additional onboard security team - we learned

King Neptune and his court

officers in the pool - again

from Callie last cruise that these folks are former US military people. They are onboard, but we haven’t noticed them – I suppose that might be the idea, we certainly noticed out-of-place guys the last time we had heightened security. As far as passengers are concerned, all outdoor lighting is turned off (makes for a weirdly dark pool deck) we can’t turn our balcony lights on, and all curtains and blinds are drawn.

25s

We turned our clocks back last night so were up in plenty of time to find a spot at the pool for the equator crossing ceremony. The

We're back!

ceremony was pretty much the same as the one on the last cruise. It made hanging at the pool a bit more upbeat. Typically, the pool deck is very, very sedate, even Cool by the Pool is calm. Today, like the last ceremony, we had party music for about an hour – woot!

I always enjoy being up early to see the beginnings of the day, and the preparations for the day to come.

Each evening when Lucia (not Muhamed, he left in Cape Town) and her assistant ‘turn down’ our room, in addition to the 2 chocolates that Chris insists we eat as a bed-time snack), and any

weird

pertinent time change or country visa info, they leave tomorrow’s daily newsletter – “Passages”. Chris and I still call them the “Daily Passages” as we’re certain that’s what they were previously called. Anyway, each day the front cover when we are in port gives port info and when we’re at sea, it’s random sailing information – today’s info is about crossing the equator.