Wednesday, October 23, 2013, At Sea in the mid-Atlantic Ocean

This is our fourth full day at sea, we passed the midpoint of our crossing the Atlantic Ocean sometime early this morning.  There were only a few bumps this morning as we passed through the edge of tropical storm Lorenzo.  According to the Captain's announcement we were 173 miles from the center of the storm and as we proceed toward the Bahamas the winds will reduce and the sea will become smoother.  We have been very fortunate with the weather on all our cruises.  Since we got up this morning the clouds continued to lift and the day became sunnier.

Even with the clock being set back an hour last night we slept late before ordering our coffee, bran muffins and melon bowls.  We didn't go to the taping of the Wake Show in the morning.  We did solve some Sudoku puzzles on the iPad and watched some news while just being generally lazy.

On the news this morning I heard that this was the 30th anniversary of the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon.  This is one of the world events that I remember where I was and what I was doing.  We were exploring back roads in the Desert Wildlife Preserve.  This bombing was the watershed event for Islamic radicalism.  It was the death knell for Lebanon and peace in the middle east.  I usually assign this type of comment for my other blog, but this was an important event.

This afternoon I went up to Deck 16 with intentions of walking, but the wind was coming across at 32 knots, so I gave that up and had pizza.  Meanwhile, Gerri, went down to the Piazza on Deck 5 to listen to Dixieland music.  We rejoined at our cabin and then went back up to Deck 16 where Gerri got her a grilled hotdog and we watched part of the movie Ferris Beuller's Day Off.  Ice Cream cones called our names and we took them back to our cabin.

Hors d'ouvres today in the Vista Lounge was creamy goat cheese on pita bread.  Del and Kay joined us for awhile.  We attended part of a show in the Princess Live with some of the group Volume. We didn't care for the show so we went back to our room and put the iPad on charge.  Gerri and I have been doing quite a few Sudoku puzzles on the iPad.  We do the puzzles differently.  I mark all of the possibilities and do them very methodically, eliminating the wrong numbers as I go.  Gerri looks for the most obvious answers and only fills in the square when she is positive.  She does the puzzles faster than I do, so I started trying her method.  At least at the easy level it works pretty well.

Dinner was at our regular time followed by a comedian show in the Princess Theater.  It is ironic that we go on cruises and see shows featuring people that appear regularly in Las Vegas and we have never heard of them.  Maybe we have to get out more.  After the comedian show we went to the Vista Lounge, another trip the length of the ship, to see a floor show.  The show had a "Ye Olde English Pub" theme and involved audience participation.

Back at our room I watched the latest Lone Ranger movie before bed.  It was not the Lone Ranger I grew up with and now watch on old time TV.

Another day at sea tomorrow, one day closer to the end of our cruise.  Even though we haven't had much pool side time we have enjoyed another day of smooth sailing in a beautiful ship.  Tomorrow night is our last formal night, our 5th one on this cruise.