Thursday, April 3. Clear sky, rough seas, coolish temperature, stiff breeze.
We rocked and rolled all night long and are still doing so as I write this around 4.00 in the afternoon. We were up around 6.00 this morning and I stepped outside to test the air, it was brisk but the sky was beautiful as the first light of dawn was along the whole horizon over Africa. I was expecting a wonderful sunrise but it never happened, it just got brighter and brighter.
The ocean looks so different from any we have been in the last three months, it looks a little angry with swells, waves going every which way with whitecaps. Our short walk around the lower deck was chilly on one side and quite pleasant on the other but we didn't enjoy it so we went inside. Every hour we get a little closer to the tropics and warmer weather. It seems that we have become whimps regarding cool weather as we have had so much sun the last few months.
Today I have done virtually nothing, and enjoyed it immensely. I have started a fiction book, the first in several years and forgot how easy they are to read. I am used to reading documentaries or the like and the objective there is to learn something and hopefully retain it in my memory. With fiction, the object is to relax and pass the time away. Will I remember the story a year from now, likely not? I could easily finish this book on such a day as today.
There were flashes of guilt or laziness that went through my head today, but I was so relaxed I dismissed them immediately, as I know this is not the life I will have when we get home.
On my map we are now about 11 inches from Fort Lauderdale, which means nothing to you but when I look at the map all I see between Namibia and the Caribbean is one heck of a lot of blue on the map: the Atlantic Ocean. The map was bought in the Philippines, and that is where the centre of the world is, of course, so they put their country in the middle of the map. In North America however when you buy a map, in most cases North America is in the centre of the map.
As you can see on the world map, Fort Lauderdale is on the very right of the map, and to get to Fort Lauderdale by going around the world we have to sail off the map on the left until we come into view again on the right hand side of the map as the world is not flat, like the map. Our route has been marked in red, and the intended route is dotted.
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We dropped our passenger count by 27 in Cape Town, increasing the American total by 50 to 750, Canadians dropped off by 11 to 155, various other nationalities dropped off considerably as we head to the New World through some interesting but, maybe-not-too-desirable, to some, ports. Total passenger count 1004, slightly more than we started with but down from the peaks from Sydney and Hong Kong.
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Nautical Terms in everyday usage.
Dressing Down: Thin and worn sails were treated with oil or wax to increase their effectiveness, this was called dressing down. A sailor or officer who was reprimanded or scolded received a dressing down.
Pics.
- Africa, showing Namibia bottom left and route to Fort Lauderdale and end of cruise.
- The world, showing Fort Lauderdale on right side and how we sail into it again, from the right after sailing off to the left???
Apologies for the poor quality of the pictures.
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