Day 10 March 16 – At Sea

Day 10 Monday March 16th – below is the daily Currents. A slow but busy sea day on the way to Nuka Hiva. We spent the day attending classes or lectures. Jackie attended a class in the morning on shooting videos with your iPhone. At noon we both attended a class put on by LeAnne Bock on creating and editing videos using iMovies. LeAnne has posted videos on the ATW cruise Facebook page and does an excellent job so passengers have asked her to do classes, which she did before we got onboard and now has done the first one since we joined the ship. At 3pm we attended the speaker’s series The Mysteries of Easter Island. James Grant-Peterkin has been presenting these talks and lived on Easter Island for twenty (20) years. He had another great presentation. His talk on Tuesday will be about the atom bomb tests in the atolls of French Polynesia and the surrounding areas.

At 5:15pm there was a cocktail party for Oceania Club members (passengers who have sailed previously with Oceania). We hit milestones with this cruise and Jackie jumped up two levels!!!! After the cocktail party we had reservations at Toscano, the Italian restaurant on board. By 9pm we were in bed and asleep.

Below are photos of mainly our meals from yesterday as Robert Cheramie reminded me that I had missed posting some meal photos recently. Good to have someone keeping me in line. 🙂

This is the dining room breakfast menu which is quite large. I hope you can zoom in and see the top.

Jackie had the banana pancakes and bacon

I am hooked on the Swedish pancakes for now and also bacon.

After breakfast Jackie attended the iPhone video class and I hung around the cigar lounge searching for roaches in the ashtrays…..laughing. Just kidding I still have a bunch of cigars left to smoke and have not gotten desperate yet. We finished our class with LeAnne Bock and went to the Waves Grill for some lunch.

Jackie had a fish sandwich with no cheese. She said it was good.

I went back to a Philly Cheesesteak as I didn’t like what was on the special grill today. I think it was lamb or maybe no wait…..it was grilled seafood, so fish and shrimp. We will see what there is on Tuesday.

Oceania does a few special events in some of the ports. I think there was one in Rio and the next one is scheduled for Singapore. We received this notification in the cabin, but we will skip it as we have a night planned for our overnight stay. I need to remember to notify the destinations desk we will not participate in this event.

A couple of photos for the evening’s Oceania Club cocktail party. The first photo is us all showered and ready to go. Can you believe I had to take another shower since Saturday? 🙂 We have our new pins on our chests……we are so accomplished until we get to the party and they announce the people who have done 40, 50, 60 and more Oceania cruises. We are still rookie status. BUT I bet that I am the only passenger with an Oceania tie clip.

We have settled in nicely with these four passengers who have been on board since Los Angeles and are doing 197 days. The people in the photo are John and Joan Myers from Slidell, Louisiana. Just a super couple and they were amazed like us there were other passengers from Louisiana on the ship. Next to Jackie is Marta Kellam, she is the companion of David (Dave) Chen who you have seen in a previous photo with me in the Cigar Lounge. Marta is pretty accomplished and has lived in Iceland, so we are anxious to pick her brain in the next few months. She also sings in the passenger choir so we will check her out soon as they will present a concert. Crazy side note —- April 8th is Joan and David’s birthday, along with Jackie and I anniversary.

We left early from this cocktail party for our dinner reservation at Toscano. Below is the menu for Toscano (hard to see as it was dark) along with various photos of the meal.

Our bread for the meal with the garlic I wait for when I come onboard.

This guy is hilarious. He works in Baristas during the day preparing special coffees and in the evenings he works in Toscano and prepares the olive oil selections for each table based upon your pick.

She is one of our waiters for the evening and I reminded her that when I return over the next four months to remind me small portions. So, she made me put my face close to the table light and she said okay I will remember you, beard and no hair 🙂

Jackie and I split the lasagna for an appetizer. Look at the size of this meal and it is split in half!!!! The Toscano lasagna is always great and it was again last night, although needed to add salt.

For her entree Jackie selected the veal dish. Again, too much food

After the half of lasagna I was finished but ordered a shrimp in tomato sauce dish which is usually an appetizer.

We were “forced” to order dessert 🙂 and we went the Toscana Quartet. Starting from the top left panna cotto, top right crispy apricot tart, bottom right roasted peaches and bottom left is tiramisu.

We walked it off by returning to cabin using the stairs laughing