Overnight we lost 30 minutes as our clocks were set forward at 2am after leaving Colombo. The harsh shrill of my phone's alarm brought me out of unconsciousness to face a new day. Today is Sunday, at least that's what the rugs in the elevators told me, and I'd be leading the interdenominational service at 9am.
The service went well and I shared a sermon on the book of Philemon that I had prepared. I've been volunteering to lead these events for the past few years, and rather enjoy it.
With this first sea day there was a nonstop series of lectures and presentations. One of the EXC guides led off with a port talk about the next two ports of call in Malaysia (Porto Malai and Port Klang). The always popular 'Ask the Captain' with KK and Captain Arno Jutten was presented to a full house. It seemed strange that the cruise director didn't conduct the interview, but KK has a much more bubbly personality. The Captain was genuinely enthusiastic about sailing to these unique ports and driving the Zodiacs.
After a light lunch, in the Wajang Theater, our guest chef presented a cooking demonstration of a chicken curry dish accompanied by a yummy looking pancake item. On the Main Stage Terry Greenberg presented yet another excellent talk on the history and culture of Malaysia. Back in the Wajang theater, Terry was followed by Ashok Ferry's writing class which was well attended and quite good.
Given the number of days we've sailed on cruise ship (nearly 500), I find it interesting how aware I am to changes in vibrations on the ship. We were in the theater and I felt more vibrations than normal. This signaled to me that we were likely traveling faster than we have been. Sure enough when I checked the APP on my phone, we were cruising along at 18 knots.
It's also interesting how little things on cruise ships excite us. As I was sitting in the Crow's Nest updating this blog and watching out the window, there was suddenly a burst of excitement and a rush to the windows on the starboard side of the ship near me. It seems that a school of porpoises or dolphins had decided to come and play in the pressure wake created by the ship. These creatures not only did their more typical graceful arcing leap out of the water, but several of them came straight up out of the water before crashing back into the water tail first.
Today we've also seen many other ships sailing in our same direction as well as the opposite direction. This is the first time we've seen this much at sea activity the entire trip.
After a leisurely Lido dinner we attended Peter Mehtab's magic show. He's quite clever and the large audience appeared captivated. But the day was capped off with 9:15pm Story Time with Terry Greenberg reading a few excerpts from his book about his early years of traveling solo and on the cheap around the world. There were over 60 people there totally engaged with his stories and the following Q&A time.
Today was also Sari night and many beautiful saris were worn.
Tonight we lose another hour and tomorrow is filled with another full set of lectures. Stay tuned.
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