May 9 and 10, 2017

On May 9 we sailed into the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden and so our pirate zone precautions were ended and our Navy Seals returned to being guests instead of security. I was taking a walk on the deck in the morning, and I saw a lot of people looking over the port side and of course I went over to see what the attraction was. I expected dolphins, which we have been spotting, but no – it was a zodiac and the weapons that were aboard were being loaded onto the zodiac to be taken to a boat that was a short distance away. Of course, I didn’t have my phone with me to take a picture, but many people did, so if I get one I will post it.  I passed the Captain on the stairs later and someone asked him about the boat and he said with a grin “It was a British boat and we were exchanging some equipment with them”.

Shortly after that we passed the new NCL Joy, a brand new ship that was on its way to Singapore to pick up its first passengers.  By now, I had my phone and Tory air dropped this picture to me.

I had run  back to the suite to get my phone, hoping to get the kind of picture shown above, and when I came back up to deck 10 here is the picture I got…. I guess I have to keep my phone with me at all times.

The Around the World quilt is progressing nicely – what a lot of beautiful work has gone into it!  Norm was trying to get good pictures. Anna (in the coral shirt) will be sewing all of the squares together, the outline will be dark blue and the spaces between the squares will be light blue.  The back will be batik which was purchased in a port during our trip. Suky and Tricia are displaying it.

The last picture is our general manager, Victor, taking a look at the quilt square representing Greece and Aphrodite – and she has breasts!  I think he looks very interested.

Later in the day, at team trivia (which is pretty cut throat, we have heard – and we don’t participate for that reason and the fact that if you miss one session, the team throws you off. We don’t want to be tied down like that) our cruise director, Ray, had a surprise for the teams.  He had clued me in ahead of time so I went to take some pictures.  He had the Navy Seals show up and told the group that they weren’t really aboard for piracy security but to keep the trivia teams in line.  It was fun to see Ray do the roll call of the teams and point out a few people that the Seals should pay attention to.

After today, our fourth day at sea, we will go to Aqaba, Jordan, which is the port that is closest to Petra and Wadi Rum.  We went to Petra last cruise so this time we are doing the off road vehicle trip to Wadi Rum.  It was 108 degrees last year at Petra so we hope it will be a little cooler this year.  But we are not counting on it, it has been quite hot and humid here for days.