Sailing sailing...

Today was another sea day. On sea days, there's no rush to get dressed or go anywhere, so these days can be quite relaxing. 

Exercise is Ronnie's happy place, so this morning he went to the exercise room and did his walking videos and floor exercises. His heart seems to be doing much better (not so erratic) since his most recent ablation. Once again I will say how very thankful we are that this problem (atrial flutter) was discovered before we left, as it would have most certainly sent us running back to our doctors in College Station. While he was exercising, I was able to join my Bible Study Zoom class without so much as a "blip." I'm so thankful that I can continue the study while away. I'll just have to remember to adjust for the time changes (it was 2 hours later ship time today).

Hopefully our niece and her family are getting settled into our home. It's nice to know that they are looking after things while we're away. They were excited to see their first group of deer nibbling around in the back yard today. They'll be blown away when they start seeing entire families coming through, young ones playing chase and moms occasionally leaving their fawns so they can forage! Our nephew Steve gave us a bird camera for Christmas and Ronnie set it up before we left. We didn't leave seed in it because it would only feed the squirrels and deer. Instead, he just pointed the camera at the bird bath. It's amazing that we can be notified every time a bird or squirrel gets a drink while 2,500 miles away in the middle of the ocean! Below is a clip from a video.

 

beautiful male cardinal

Our day started out with a room service breakfast. Our butler is very kind and accommodating. We had lunch together again in the Terrace Cafe. This afternoon Ronnie attended an onboard lecture about the islands we're approaching (Devil's Island, Dominica, Barbados). I attended a class in the photo lab where a staff member explained many of the features are on our phones that will hopefully improve our photos - how to blur backgrounds, freeze motion, panorama, etc. She goes pretty fast and it can get confusing in a hurry because she's talking to people with different icons on Google, Android, Apple and who knows what else. Hopefully she'll be available for one-on-one help as well.

 

phone camera instruction in LYNC Digital Center

helping locate features

Some good news for Ronnie today! Prashant located some Dr. Pepper on the ship. He's been eating really healthy so he plans to have a burger and DP tomorrow. ha! In other news - our laundry is now marked EXPEDITE so we can stop worrying about running out of underwear. We sent it out this morning and it was back in our room this afternoon, nicely wrapped in tissue. The whole situation with lost luggage has been very irritating but at least we know the problem was with Luggage Forward and not Oceania. 

After the talks, we had planned to meet Ellie (the Asian lady from our previous World Cruise) and form a Trivia team (8 persons per team). However, during the camera talk, I started to feel not so great. So we met her but bowed out and came back to our room. I later found out she's a Mensan so she probably didn't need me on her team anyway! lol  And I don't want to risk sharing cooties if I'm coming down with something. I wasn't hungry at all (a symptom in itself) so Ronnie went on to dinner without me. He had planned to watch the Fiesta Bowl on the deck tonight, but when he got there it had rained and all the deck chairs were wet, so he's watching it in the room instead.  

We'll be in Gustavia, Barbadas tomorrow. Thankfully we didn't book an excursion there. If we decide not to get off the ship, I can post some photos from our visit there a year ago. It is quite beautiful, but there's no telling what a pair of underwear would cost in Barbadas. It definitely wouldn't be Fruit of the Loom. 

I'm drinking some Emergen-C (similar to Airborne) and taking Zinc which will hopefully nip whatever this in the bud. If not, we brought covid tests and all kinds of RXs from the travel doctor. And there's a doctor and onboard clinic, but hopefully I won't need to go.

I will add that it's almost impossible for me to see a sunrise or sunset over the ocean and not let my shutter finger get out of control. I'm sure I'll be sharing other sunrises and sunsets as we go along. 

 

 tonight's sunset