Last Day :-(

But home on Friday :-)

It takes so long to get here and then it’s over so quickly.

First of all, correction, and apologies to Matthew, who took a degree in web design and also knew the answer to HTML. Sorry, son! And good on ya mate!

We ate lunch in the Solarium today, and I had the second best egg salad sandwich. The best is served
at the Augusta National. But this one was yummy. Actually, I had one yesterday, too.

We played a game of trivia this afternoon with four folks we’ve played with before. We came in second in this one, and if I would have trusted myself, we would have tied for the win: What can you not be to own a cow in Scotland? We went with the answer "commoner" – it’s only for royalty, but the answer was, and I knew it – drunk. I was not drunk. The answer was "drunk."

Not much more happening. We will pack up our luggage after supper and set it out for the porters to

move it for disembarkation. We go off at 8:35 in the morning.

It has been a great trip. Looking forward to returning in October (and I saw another crew member today who remembered me from the Enchantment of the Seas last year).

TTFN and Raise the Jolly Roger!

Anchors Aweigh

All aboard was 11:30 a.m. We sailed at noon with one passenger absent. The captain said he wouldn’t wait, because to go over time with the tug they had contracted was $200 a minute, and everyone knew what time all aboard was. So about 15 minutes after we sailed, the ship drifted to a stop, and a tug appeared with our wayward passenger. It took him about 30 minutes altogether to get onboard, so his little dalliance on shore, whatever it was, cost him over $6,000. I hope it was worth it. He could have bought a first class plane ticket to Baltimore cheaper. Oh well.

Bonnie and I split up on shore today. She went shopping and I went to a museum. We did not arrange a place to meet when we came back, so I came back earlier, after my new camera batteries ran out (and the spare pair we took ashore was with Bonnie on her shopping trip – neither of us thought about it). I did get a couple of pictures of Snorkel Beach – it’s less than 10 minutes from the ship, so folks wanting a last minute swim in Bermuda’s waters were taking advantage. And a nice shot of the Atlantic Ocean from on top of the fort.

When I got on, I asked the officer of the deck, "Did my wife come back on?" She said, "What does 
she look like?" I made a wide gesture with my hands and said, "Her arms will be spread out like this, carrying about 20 packages." The officer replied, "Nope, she’s not on board."

Bon got back about 15 minutes later, waited outside for a few minutes, then boarded the ship, gave security my name and they told her I had returned.

We played trivia this afternoon with Gary and Alice from Somewhere, Maryland, and our team scored 3 points. Out of 20. The correct answers were Morocco, 14, and Hyper Text Markup Language (thank you, Michael for the last one).

I visited for a while with Jack and Debbie from Pittsburgh’s Northside. They have been to all of my talks and the worship service. He is the music leader at his church and invited me to come preach the next time we are in the Burgh. I told him the boys and I would be up for playoff baseball. He said they’d meet us at City Oven Pizza on Banksville Road (the best pizza known to human kind).

Supper on our last formal night was prime rib and Baked Alaska. The show was the Royal Caribbean Singers and Dancers doing "Rhythm and Rhyme," songs from Broadway shows. After selections from West Side Story, Chicago, and Cats, I took a nap. Mr. Excitement.

My final talk for this cruise is "Baltimore’s Harbor: Defending Freedom," at 9 a.m. in the South Pacific Lounge. Then we pack up to meet the Bro and C.J. Thursday morning. Check back tomorrow. I think I will have enough Internet minutes left for one more posting.

TTFN and Raise the Jolly Roger!

Exploring St. George’s.


Using our one day transportation pass, we boarded the Ferry for St. George’s at 9:30 a.m., and sailed to the former capital of Bermuda and the place where the survivors of the shipwrecked "Sea Venture"– all 153 of them, came ashore on July 29, 1609 (Happy Birthday, Bro).

In St. George’s we met the Town Crier who told us a trial was under way for a wench accused of gossiping. If she was found guilty, she would be sentenced to be dunked in the harbor. She is always found guilty, he confided. It is a daily performance for we tourists.

Inasmuch as we arrived 90 minutes before the verdict came in, we struck out to explore other sites, first visiting St. Peter’s Church, the oldest on the island. They are the only church to have a separate cemetery for blacks and former slaves.

 One dweller in the cemetery was alive and enjoying the shade.

St. Peter’s has been designated Her Majesty’s Church on Bermuda. Charles and Diana once attended there and left their autographs. They evidently didn’t pay close attention to the service (Charles, especially – the part about thou shalt not commit adultery).

Not far from there is the Unfinished Church. It did not start out to be unfinished, in fact, the good folk at St. Peter’s decided they would build another building, but ran out of money (seemingly forgetting about what Jesus say about counting the cost). When they got more money, they couldn’t decide what denomination they wanted to belong to, so they went back to the original building, and the Unfinished Church is unfinished – and will remain so, having been purchased by the Bermuda Historical Trust.

From there, we completed our walk to Fort St. Catherine’s and Gate’s Bay, a total walk of over 3 miles, most of it uphill. Gate’s Bay, a very small strip of pink sandy beach is where the "Sea Venture" folk came ashore, having been blown off course four days earlier by a hurricane. They stayed on the island almost 10 months, and with lumber salvaged from their ship (which miraculously stayed upright after grounding on a reef) and cutting native cedar trees, they constructed two smaller ships, sailed to Jamestown, VA, with a load of dried ham, fish, and vegetables, and literally saved the Jamestown colony.

A model of the "Deliverance," one of the two ships (the other was the "Patience") has been recreated. It is incredibly small, only 40 feet long. When I commented to the ticket taker about the wonder of such a small craft, completely hand-built without sophisticated equipment, surviving a 600 mile journey, he pointed to my shirt, and said, "No, there’s the real wonder. The success of your Pittsburgh Pirates this year." Even in Bermuda they are raising the Jolly Roger!

We rode the shuttle back to St. George’s (named for the dragon slayer), and standing by a pink bus pole, caught Old # 11 to Hamilton. The pink bus poles are for buses going into Hamilton, the blue poles are for buses going out of Hamilton. Hamilton is the shopping capital of Bermuda. Pink is for
girls. Blue for boys. It’s easy to figure out.

In Hamilton we purchased a chicken salad sandwich which we shared, and two 20 ounce, frosty cold bottles of Mountain Dew. After four days of having only Coke to drink, nothing ever tasted better. I planned to bring one back to the ship, but with lunch concluded, I drank the second one for dessert.

After naptime, supper, and an enjoyable show by Bobby Brooks Wilson, son of the late Jackie Wilson, we walked back over to the Dock Yard for a performance by the Bermuda regiment’s marching band and bagpipe corps. It was a re-enactment of a retreat ceremony – not necessarily retreating from battle, but announcing the cessation of fighting for the evening and curfew (when there was no fighting going on it was the signal to local pubs to announce "last call"). Precision marching and good music.

We will go back to the Dock Yard for a brief visit in the morning. All aboard is 11:30 a.m.

TTFN and Raise the Jolly Roger!

Finally in Bermuda

September 14 and 15, 2013

　

Boarding the Grandeur of the Seas was the easiest embarkation ever! We walked up to the Pier

Coordinator’s desk, showed them our boarding letter, they issued our Sea Passes and we went on board.

Getting to the ship was not as easy. The night before we left Kyle and Cathy’s, I asked Google for the direction to the Baltimore Cruise Dock. Instead it gave me the address to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. We saw some ships – U.S. Constellation for one, but not Lady G. Re-enter. Quiet the women in the car. Arrive at Cruise Dock. Hugs and kisses. Get on board. Re-read Paragraph 1.

Among many pleasant surprises, we have been assigned to Early Seating for supper, which means we eat at 5:30 instead of 8 p.m. Much better for the digestion, and if we choose, we can go to the evening show and then go to bed.

Good group of folk at Table 416. Everyone has cruised before and no one was trying to impress anyone on how many cruises they’ve taken, how many times they’ve eaten at the Captain’s Table, blah blah blah. And I told them the Hub Cap Joke. They still love me, and all but two of them came to my talk this morning: "King’s Wharf: The Gibraltar of the Pacific" (guess they didn’t like the HCJ).

During the talk I told the story – because of the abundance of fish in Bermudian waters – about the Russian fisherman. "His eye was THIS big!

My coordinator with the Cruise Director is Darryl, and he was my activities director on the Enchantment of the Seas last August. Fun guy. I’ll try to get a picture of him.

Walking down the hall to our stateroom after lunch today, a lady stopped me – her name is Liliana – she was our stateroom attendant on the Enchantment. I hope we tipped her good! Since she remembered me, it’s a 50-50 proposition.

We met our stateroom attendant for this cruise – Sandeep – and he said our cabin is the one typically assigned to the destination lecturers, of which I are one. He asked how my talk went this morning and when I told him there were about 120 people in the South Pacific Lounge he was surprised. He said the crowd is usually about 75. So I hope tomorrow is good – we’ll see what kind of a job I did today!

This was formal night, so we put on our best big and tucker (what’s a tucker?) and headed for The
Great Gatsby Restaurant. F. Scott would have approved I think.

Fantastic show after dinner with James Stevens III, a singer and impersonator who has been picked to play Bill Cosby in an upcoming movie. Cos was one of his bits and he looks and sounds like him. Plus Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Louis Armstrong, and some people of whom I have never heard before (nor probably will again). But a great show.

There was an interesting aerial show in the Centrum – the center of the ship, and an area that is open from Deck 4 up to Deck 7. Two men were doing "Cirque" type acrobatics in what appeared to be simply decorative chandeliers. They will perform again Monday night.

And now to bed with "Flight 19 and the Legend of the Bermuda Triangle" scheduled for 9 a.m., and non-denominational worship at 11:45 (word from Macedonia must have preceeded me, because they have something else scheduled at 12:30 – church will be out in 45 minutes, and we will beat the Baptists to the Windjammer).

We dock at 3 p.m., so I’ll try to post some pictures of Bermuda tomorrow night.

Well, it’s tomorrow and I still haven’t gotten anything posted. Hopefully in a few minutes.

We set our clocks up one hour last night, and there were still 100 hearty souls out for "Flight 19." There were 200 for morning worship. Conducting the service was interesting. We started out with a backdrop of paintings for the art auction, and disco music – leftovers from last night, I guess – but by 11:45 everything was in place and we had a good time. We open with "Blessed Assurance,"and the sound track I used was definitely a faster tempo than we sing it at Macedonia. I like the slower pace better.

We ate in the Great Gatsby for lunch, and shared the table with six Marylanders. To my immediate right was Elaine. She was looking for her husband, and baring find him, another husband, preferably she said, one who was rich. Bonnie volunteered me, but when Elaine found out that Bonnie had spent all of my money, my application was taken off of the table. It turns out that her husband had misunderstood the directions she had given him – don’t we all – and went to the buffet instead of the dining room. At supper tonight, she pointed us out to him and he thanked us for taking care of his wife during his unexcused absence.

We docked at 3 p.m. and went out just a little ways as it was sprinkling and/or all-out raining most of

the afternoon. We walked over to the Clock Tower Mall and bought one candy bar. We also bought a bus/ferry pass and tomorrow will ride the ferry up to St. George, the historic capital of Bermuda where we will do some exploring, and hopefully have something exciting to report tomorrow.

Now, I will see if I can get this posted. We have wi-fi in our cabin, but the ship’s internet service demands the use of Internet Explorer (the internet’s version of iPhone – another ghetto product). Oh well. When in Rome. Or in Bermuda.

TTFN, and Raise the Jolly Roger!