What's to See on a Sea Day

Since we have had so many "sea days" in the past weeks, some of you have asked if we are getting bored.  What can you possibly do to keep you happy when land is not in sight for so long.  Isn't it boring being confined to such a small space with the same people for so long?
The answer is simple. We love sea days!  There is so much to do that I cannot possibly do everything I want.  Let me walk you through a typical day at sea for me.

Breakfast in the World Cafe with its egg stations with bacon, sausage, muffins, toast, rolls, juice, coffee etc.  You will note that I did not put in a time.  We get up when we wake up and eat when we feel like it.  Darrell often lingers over breakfast or joins friends to chat.  If we see people we know who have space at their table, we may join them.  If not, we often make new friends by asking if we may sit with them.  With people getting on and off, there are always new people to meet.

9:00 some days:  Bible Study.  I say some days because it is always  the last sea day when there is 1 or 2, or, if it is a long stretch there may be more than 1 day in those days.  The women meet in the restaurant (no, they do not provide food) and discuss a book which everyone is reading.  Many people download the book on a Kindle or iPad, but I haven't figured out how to do that so I borrow the book or someone's iPad.  That lasts until about 10:00.  The men meet for a series on various topics, such as
bible translations or church history. Darrell's group has met each day this past week at 9:00.

9:30 or 9:00 or 10:00 depending on the day, Crafters' Corner. Some people cross stitch, some crochet, some do hand quilting and some knit.  The knitting instructor comes at 10:00 (or sooner but the class starts at 10.)  She brought very fine yarn and circular knitting needles along with a variety of patterns for scarves and shawls.  Each person is allowed 1 pattern, 1 skein of yarn, 1 set of needles, enough to complete 1 item.  However many of the beginners have difficulty, so end up frogging (frogging = rip it, rip it, rip it.)  My scarf has many "design elements (mistakes)" but that will just make it unique.

One of the other projects

Beverly, the knitting instructor, in the Wintergarden

Knitting in the Wintergarden, overlooking the pool

A hand pieced quilt

The first 400 caps

Our other knitting projects involves larger yarn and a simpler pattern.  We are making baby hats to deliver to  hospitals in Mozambique, Madagascar, South Africa and Senegal.  I was not sure if anyone would be interested, but so far we have over 50 knitters who have produced over 480 hats.  The project really has caught on. Others knit adult size caps for the military.

Seating in Star Theater

Some days people leave to go the "Enrichment Lectures" in the Star Theater which could cover anything from the wild life of the area to the history of some part of the world to how it feels to work for the CIA.  I often skip them and catch up later since they are all added to the TV shortly after they are given live.

12:00 The Captain broadcasts the Noon Sea Report From the Navigational Bridge.  He tells us where we are, how far we have come, the temperature, depth of water, distance to the nearest land, sea, pool and air temperatures and whatever else he feels like telling us.  The message usually ends with an admonition to be careful when walking, hold unto the provided railings, and "take care of each other."

Jessa at Sin City

12:15 or 12:30  Lunch, usually in the World Cafe on Deck 7.  There is a large salad bar, hot foods usually including a couple kinds of meat dishes, a few kinds of vegetables, fish and other creations from the chef. And then there is Sin City, Darrell's name for the dessert bar.  There are always 5 or 6 kinds of puddings, pies, other combinations that the pastry chef concocts and GELATO, the ultimate temptation.  Chocolate, strawberry and vanilla are always available, but the chef comes up with a sherbet and 3 or 4 other gelato flavors each day.  One of these is sugar-free. Darrell's favorite is Bourbon Cherry, but I like Salted Caramel.  Oh, did I mention 4 different kind of cookies?


After lunch, and that can take an hour and a half if we get talking, it is nap time for Darrell.  Sometimes I join him, but more often I will work on the jigsaw puzzle, work on a blog, do laundry, read a book or go to the various lectures.  There may be 3-4 lectures a day. Before each port of call, we get a Port Talk, telling us about the place we will be visiting and all the tours available.  There are usually 5 or 6 optional tours available for a price as well as the free included tour.

6:00 or 6:30 means time for more food.  Our favorite place to eat is The Chef's Table which features a set menu of five courses and 4 paired wines.  The menu changes every 3 days and focuses on food from a specific location, like California or France, or a period of time like European food from Roman times to present.  If we do not eat there, we can choose Manfredi's, an Italian focus with a la carte selections in huge portions. (I always order a half portion.)  We could eat at The Restaurant where the menu changes daily but always offers certain stock items as prawns, salmon, and creme brulee.


However, The World Cafe is our usual choice.  For one thing, they have crab legs, shrimp and suchi every night in addition to hot food, soup and Sin City.  This, too, is usually a long meal with conversation to aid digestion.

Darrell likes to arrange groups to meet in one of the two private dining rooms.  He often gets one of the ship's crew such as the Captain or the Cruise Director to join us. Tonight at 6:30 Darrell has 14 people and joining us will be the Beverage Manager, Matthew, from South Africa, and Gami, from Croatia, who is the overall Manager of all of the food service areas such as Sue mentioned above, plus four other venues.

Dinner with the Captain in Manfredi's private dining room 

By now it is time to get back to the room to read, catch up on the lectures, see a movie or a TV program before going to bed.  There is entertainment every night at 9:15, but we seldom choose to go.  It is past our bedtime!

If you would like to see what our world looks like, I invite you to look us up at Viking Ocean
cruises. Go to ships and select Viking Sun.  There are views of rooms (ours is a Junior Penthouse Suite) and many locations on the ship.  Their photographers do a far better job than I can.

The Center of the World

Maybe it would be better to say, "The Center of the Map."   We are sailing from Namibia to Senegal along Africa's west coast.  Each day the captain gives us our longitude and latitude.  At 3:00 PM today we were at 0.00 degrees latitude and 0.00 degrees longitude, a point known to mariners as Null Island.  There is no island, not even a little one, just a 12 foot high buoy bouncing around in the Atlantic Ocean in 15000+ feet of water.  This is the point where the line through Greenwich (the prime meridian) crosses the equator, an imaginary line equidistant from both poles.

At first, this is all I saw.

Then, I saw this in the far distance.

My camera has better color.

Darrell's camera has better detail.

Another Country, Another Culture

Our first scheduled stop in Namibia, Africa, was cancelled.  This was to be a port requiring the use of tenders (our ship lifeboats) to get ashore, but the wind and waves were too high, just as it was at Easter Island.  At Easter Island someone from shore was able to board and give us a commentary about the island.  Here, not even the custom officials were able to board, so when we got to Walvis Bay, Namibia, we had immigration in the morning for us to enter the country and emigration in the afternoon to leave the country.  Bureaucracy rules.

There is a very thin strip of land along the Atlantic Ocean which provides a place for towns and a highway.  To the east there is desert, nothing but sand.  Even the small bushes which grow on the edge of the desert get covered by the drifting sand.
The tallest dune in the area, Dune 7, is over 1200 feet tall.  In other desert countries, irrigation make it possible to grow some grass.  Here there was none anywhere.  We had a stop at Dune 7  for refreshments.  People were crawling up the dune and running or sliding down.  Even our captain had a try at that.

Those spots on the skyline are
people climbing Dune 7.

Captain Olaf at Dune 7

We drove through Swakopmund, the first coastal town north of Walvis Bay.  This town was settled by the Germans, and it shows.  Streets are wide and straight, and the architecture looks Bavarian.  Individual houses are neat, but the yards, if any, are small.  What is the point of having a large yard if you cannot grow grass or a garden?   Every lot has walls to provide some privacy.  Then we entered the poorer section of town.



The first stop was at one of the street-side markets.  Unlike other countries we have visited, there was no central market.  Instead, vendors set up tables beside the street on built shelters out of any available material to provide a shop.  There were also charcoal grills long the street selling hot food.











Notice the man on the left.  He is using his cell phone while waiting for lunch.  Almost everyone has a cell phone, no matter how poor they are.  Cell phone towers, disguised as palm trees dot the horizon.

A cell phone tower.

Did you ever wonder what becomes of the clothing you donate to Salvation Army or Goodwill?  When an item does not sell or is in too poor a condition to sell, it gets bundled up and is often
sent to Africa.  There is a lively market for used clothing. Tarps are spread out and a bundle of assorted clothing and shoes is separated and sold on the street.  Some vendors sell anything; others specialize.  This stall was made of a board frame with black plastic bags as walls and roof.














All these pictures are from the "main" streets of the area.  Side streets are smaller, and business is conducted from each house, whether it is a beauty shop, car wash or food store.

A small cafe is called a Tuck Shop, probably from the British "tucker" meaning food.  No, they are not selling people.  Russians and Viennas are kinds of sausage.

We visited one of the homes and had a chance to look inside.  Everything was neat  and clean, but crowded, with several large overstuffed chairs in the living room.  The woman who lives there runs a daycare in here backyard.

The daycare center

Her daughter was home from college where she is studying business management.  She explained the traditional dress.  One of the tribes in the area wore only a piece of leather below the belt and nothing above.  Needless to say, you could get a real sunburn dressed like that.  They solved the problem by making a cream of ground red pigment and animal fat, and coating their body with the cream.  It is very effective.  However, when the Germans came with their fancy houses, they wanted to hire the locals as housekeepers.  Can you imagine how much of that red grease would rub off on the furniture?  Also the proper Germans found the state of undress offensive.  As a side note, wealth among many African tribes is measured in cattle, so cattle are highly regarded.  The solution was to have the housekeepers dress in a Victorian style dress.  However, the locals still wanted to honor the cattle, so they devised a headdress which features stiff cloth "horns" in the front.  The dress style may be Victorian, but the cloth color is strictly Africa.  Dress like this is now only worn on special occasions. The rest of the time, dress is Western thrift shop.

Next we went to a center where older children came and learned how to make crafts to sell.  The main part was an area covered with cloth or a tarp with a layer of straw on top to provide some insulation.   The area where the crafts were displayed had a pole frame with walls made of plastic bottles filled with sand and wired together.   Cement fill the spaces.  Actually it was a smart idea.  Bottles are plentiful and using them keeps them off the streets.  The sand provides insulation.

As we were driving along the streets, we saw houses of cement block with wooden shacks in the back yard.  Unemployment is close to 40%, so many people cannot afford a house.  Those who have houses need extra income to live, so they rent out space in the back yard to others.  At one time, there could be as many a 4 or 5 of these wooden or even cardboard shacks in a single yard.  There were no sanitation facilities and no electricity, so cooking was done on open fires or kerosene stoves.  Fires were frequent and devastating.  Now a homeowner is only allowed 3 shacks in a yard.


What do you do with all the displaced people?  You clear a large space, put in dirt roads, divide the area into lots and give a lot to each family.  Water is at a spigot down the street.  There is electricity, but no other utilities.  It is not ideal, but it is an improvement.  Private enterprise is common.  People turn part of their home into  a business to make money.  They are not allowed to build permanent buildings with block, just wood.  The government is building houses just outside the area.  When a person gets a job so he can make a mortgage payment, he can move into a solid house with running water.  It is working, but it will be a long time before the shacks go away.














Despite the poverty people are making the best of the situation.  Our guide's mother converted part of her house into a restaurant for tour groups and for locals.  We were served a delicious meal of local food -- chicken, stewed spinach, thick porridge and chewy bread. 

After the meal a local group serenaded us, much to our delight as well as the locals.  Children waved to us and enjoyed having their pictures taken.

More About Africa

I never realized that the continent of Africa was so big until one of the lecturers showed this slide.  It may be a bit fuzzy since I was copying it off the TV set in our room.  You could fit the land mass of all these countries in the shape of Africa and still have land to spare.  Notice that the UK just barely covers Madagascar and China fits nicely into the southern part of the continent.

Cape Town, South Africa, has one of the seven wonders of the natural world.  This was our view as we sailed into Cape Town.

Table Mountain dominates the skyline along with Lion's Head and Signal Hill.

 In case you were wondering, here is a map of the other six wonders of the natural world.  The Grand Canyon does not make it into the top 7.

Nelson Mandela was held prisoner for many years on an island just off Cape Town.  When he was released, he greeted the crowds from the balcony of the city hall. 











Cape Town is wedged between mountains and the sea, giving many beautiful beaches.  Do not try swimming without a wet suit.  The water temperature never gets much over 50 degrees.

The old lighthouse

Cape Town from Table Mountain

There are two botanical gardens.  One, The Company Garden is in the heart of the city.  It is surrounded by government buildings and churches, and contains statues of famous South Africans.

The Company Garden

Government House

Cecil Rhodes

Sculpture in the children's play area

The other botanical garden is a national garden set against the backdrop of the surrounding hills.

South African National Flower

It is possible to reach the top of Tabletop Mountain by hiking, a long and strenuous hike.  We chose to go by cable car.  The car itself rotates so that all 65 people in the car have a chance to see all the vistas. 



















There are walking trails all over the Tabletop, a restaurant and a gift shop.  I hiked around a bit and met this charming, but shy, creature.   He is about 12 inches long and very furry (and fast.)

Oops, he got away!

He may look mean, but he isn't.

We came down the mountain as the sun was setting and the full moon rising.