Saturday 21st October 2017
A few things happened this morning. To start with as the day began, we had to forward our clocks an hour so now we are two hours ahead of South Africa. This was our breakfast view.
It seems the danger from pirates is over. Passengers were walking the outside lower decks after dark last night and no one was stopping them. We are a few hundred kilometres off the coast of Somalia heading full south towards the Seychelles. Looks like the Costa neoRiviera is also heading that way.
This evening we will cross the equator at about 9pm. The tradition is always to have an equator crossing party where a ‘key’ is handed over to the ship’s Captain allowing him to cross this all important invisible line. The party was held this morning – everyone gathered on deck and watched “King Neptune” arrive to hand over the key.
Shortly after the party ended, there was an announcement. We were due to arrive in the Seychelles tomorrow morning at 6am, but we have been told that due to “unscheduled maintenance activity to the propulsion gears which had diminished our cruising speed” we now will only arrive at 3pm tomorrow. It also means that we will only arrive in Mauritius at noon on Wednesday, but then will have caught up the time lost. Our scheduled arrival in Durban is not affected which is helpful as we have a flight back to Cape Town 5 hours after our 7am arrival time on Monday 30th October.
The rest of the day has been fabulous with food, exercise, swimming and resting. 🙂
#453 of my 1000 thanks has to go to another amazing appliance Mike bought before we left SA – it’s a steamer for getting creases out of clothes without needing an iron and ironing board. We have used it a lot. It’s so easy to use and I think we will continue when we get home.
Apart from Jeremiah, I’m reading Timothy…
1 Timothy 6:11
Pursue righteousness and a godly life, along with faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness.
Something to strive for.
There are some amazing very hard-working people on this ship. The crew work extremely hard. They seem to be working 7 days a week. Many are at the end of their contract and when we arrive in Durban will go onto other things. There is Riki our cabin steward who comes in not only once, but twice a day, to clean our cabin and turn our bed down before we go to sleep. It is kept immaculately clean. Then there is Matthew who serves us at dinner. He wanted some ship experience before going to work on the super yachts. I don’t think there has been a day that I haven’t seen him at work. I think the novelty has worn off, but these two guys have certainly sailed the ocean blue and remain helpful and positive.
These are the days!
Keep the smile going.
God bless you.
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂