#39 5/1-2 At Sea

Pictures:

1. This is the sunrise on May 1st while we were at sea.  You can see that the waves off the stern of the ship are pretty insignificant.  The brown smudge on the left is the exhaust from our engines falling far astern.  I've never smelled diesel exhaust on our veranda and it faces directly aft at the back of the ship.

2. This is the Rock of Gibraltar the next day.  As you can see we have sailed out of the bad weather that kept us from Motril earlier in the day.  The far peak of the rock is the logo for Prudential Insurance.  It's also the far end of the Rock.  On the only really flat part of the rock you can see a white structure with a tall spire.  This is the mosque that serves the Rock's 17 Muslims.  The King Saudi Arabia has made it his business to build mosques all over the world, even where there's almost no Muslims.  At the end of the Rock on the left is Europa Point and the old fortifications.  The Rock is riddled with tunnels dug for defensive purposes during various wars.  One large room in the caves serves as a theater for plays and concerts.

3. This is the Rock looking at it from end to end from the south in the middle of the Strait of Gibraltar.  The mountain in the distance is Spain as is the land on the right.  The city in the distance is also in Spain.

 

Short entry today as I wanted to send some pictures from these days.

 

May 1 – At Sea.  Another planned day at sea.  Today they have a program called 'On Deck for the Cure'.  It's a 5k walk for the Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure, a breast cancer research and awareness group.  HAL does this on all its ships and has raised over two million dollars for the cause.  The ship clears the program for this event so if you're not walking there's not much else to do.  The only other special event was the Thé Dansant.  The ship has an afternoon tea every day but today they've scheduled a tea dance.  Usually the string trio plays for teatime in the dining room but today the orchestra will be playing in the Showroom at Sea for tea.

 

The evening's entertainment was the Prinsendam Singers in a program called Street Singin'.  It was a night of songs that had their genesis on the streets of Philadelphia in the 1950s.  Street Corner Music, as we called it (I lived in eastern Pennsylvania at the time), could be heard on Philly's streets any night of the week.  These male groups could be 2 to 4 people and sang in the close harmony style that has become to be known generally as Doo Wop.  I enjoy harmony so this was a great evening for me.

 

May 2 – At Sea.  Another unplanned day at sea.  Today we were supposed to be in Motril, Spain.  The weather is terrible and there's no chance to get into the harbor and therefore it's a sail-by for us today.  This creates a normal day at sea for me.  Nothing much special is on the schedule as we were expecting to be ashore. 

 

Because we didn't stop at Motril we had a daylight passage past the Rock of Gibraltar and through the Straits.  This gave us a chance for some great photos of The Rock although the peaks were mostly covered in clouds.

 

Because entertainers are getting off tomorrow we had a variety show.  Three of the past entertainers split a show so Perry Danos, the guitarist, Mike Goddard, the comic and Katzenjammer, the pianists all performed a very enjoyable show.