Saturday Oct 1

Today is our next-to-last day at sea for a while. I remarked to Sandra that while I was looking forward to getting to Hawaii, I like these days at sea. As I have mentioned before, there are so many things to do, you really can't do it all. Last night was a beautiful evening, and we slept with our balcony door open. The sounds of the sea as the boat makes it's way along our course is so peaceful and makes sleeping so easy. So the morning dawns with a reddish sky, but proves to be another nice day, and with a time change (to Hawaii time), makes getting up at 8 AM no big deal.

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The clouds had a reddish orange tint—not “red sky in the morning—and the day was lovely.

Yesterday Sandra and I had a little business with the “front desk”. The desk clerk, Christine, was anxious to coax us to attend the Filipino Crew Show (which was being presented this morning.) So after breakfast we went to the showroom. The show was a very patriotic presentation, a number of indigenous songs including their national anthem and several folk dances. Christine appeared with a guitar accompianist and sang two songs (wearing 9” heels).

Here's the cast at the conclusion of the show, Christine: standing just to the left of her guitar player.

Of course we enjoyed the show and were flattered that the participants thanked us so profusly for attending. Even later in the day as we saw members of the troupe and thanked them, they thanked us for being there and supporting their efforts.

OK, over to the cooking show to which we seem to be going everyday--but we both enjoy the presentations and the recipes. Today's first segment included Hawaiian soul food, which in this case was POKE (Poe-Kee) and is made usually from Ahi Tuna, but was also done using flank steak and for the vegetarians in the audience, was similarly made with tofu. Last week in Englewood, the Wine Bistro added Poke to their special menu, and we tried it there, and liked it. In a nutshell it's similar to a simple ceviche as is often made in Mexico, just sushi grade raw tuna served over seaweed with soy sauce, onion, cilantro, olive and sesame oil, sea salt and lime juice. Served cold in martini glasses.

Not a great photo, partly because there's a glass bottle behind the POKE serving.

So after lunch I attended a Microsoft workshop, (a class in Windows 10) with tips to make WIN10 work better for me. We'll see how all this classroom training will work out for me over time—especially as I don't have an internet connection right now. Then I caught up with Sandra back at our room and we spent the afternoon out on our balcony. We were having lots of whitecaps, the captain

came on the speakers to give us position and general updates. The passenger who fell ill yesterday was in a recovery mode, which made me feel good about us rallying to help.

Later we attended a “Sip and Savor” program, which was wine and the Poke from the class earlier in the day. Bad news, it was the tofu version and frankly it sucked.

Steak Poke in the top bowl, the lower plate is the Tofu Poke. We were unable to try the steak,

but my personal opinion after trying the Tofu—Yuck, don't bother.

The final event of the day was in the Showroom, where a ventriloquist named Rob Watkins was the evening entertainer. Neither Sandra nor I have ever wanted to see a ventriloquist, but he was the only show in town, and we had a half bottle of wine that we carried into the showroom so we decided Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? I must say, he was entertaining, and good at his craft, Snadr thought he was creepy and I can see her opinion. He had a dummy (a small boy) who was bound with clothesline and had a knit hat pulled down over his face. He managed to be able to converse with Rob, but just. And there was somebody in a suitcase who occasionally yelled to be let out. He commented that the TSA guys at the airport love that sketch. But I agree, he was creepy. When we returned to the cabin, we saw some sea birds, so we are getting closer to land.