Rhonda: Well......we did it. We skipped a port and stayed on the ship. We have our reasons. Mainly we didn't want to go to bed early last night. Recife was a substitute stop (reasons unknown) and the times at port were 6a-2pm. And all the tours were sold out. We just did not have it in us to do it on our own with no research, early morning in yet another Brazilian town. See..... we had all the reasons to stay on the boat and sleep later.
At 300pm today we started across the Atlantic! We are halfway through our trip also. On the one hand it feels like we have been gone forever but on the other hand I am sad there are only 16 days to go! We are going to start seeing a lot of places very different from South America and that's very exciting.
I promised some odds and ends that we didn't include at the time. My first one is from Valparaiso, Chile. All over there were stray dogs that were so tame and lovey. That's because there is no animal control there. The people feed them, get them fixed, and love on them. They just sleep wherever they want and know that they are safe. All of the restaurants feed them and the dogs know not to come in. It's so cute. There might be two or three just laying under the tables on the sidewalk waiting for petting.
Chris: We are still trying to learn our way around the boat but we are close to getting it down I think, we never got lost lost today, only really turned around. Day before yesterday we were walking somewhere and I looked over a railing down into another area and asked Rhonda, what's that down there ? It's a bar, we had a glass of wine there , remember ? No, it doesn't look familiar, I said. Oh you remember she said, it's where that Asian guy was playing the piano and singing Kenny Rogers songs. I just looked at her and then said, I think that's the most old white people on a cruise thing I've ever heard.
Today we slept late, ate lunch, hung out by the pool until three when we sailed. I love being up top when these big ships enter or leave port. I find it fascinating. It's so cool seeing the harbor pilot boat come out. In case you don't know, the harbor pilot is a pilot that is very familiar with the harbor and port. If you are arriving, a boat brings the harbor pilot out and he climbs onto the ship then helps pilot it into port, if a ship is departing it is just the opposite and the boat comes out to retrieve him after the ship has successfully cleared the harbor and is in open water. I always picture the harbor pilot looking like the old boat captain from the movie Jaws, all seasoned and salty, a rough man of the sea and the cruise ship captain is in a pressed starched white uniform with a bunch of fake medals. He's trying to be in charge but doesn't really know what's going on and the harbor pilot is like, shut up and get out of the way you clown, I got this. This is for real sailors. Today we had a big kind of beat up super tough looking tug boat going out with us, it went beside us for a while then cut behind us. I'm not sure what it was doing but it was really cool looking.
Rhonda: Paula Deens' husband is a harbor pilot and is definitely all seasoned and crusty and looks a lot like Santa! Hey.... since we are heading out to cross the Atlantic we have no idea what internet we will have. We heard a rumor that NCL always used Russian satellite and now ( obviously) they don't want to, so we don't know if they have a new option. So if you don't hear from us that's why, but we will be writing anyway and will send them when we can .
Love y'all.
Good writing!'