April 17 Day 1
Day 1 started out well, we both had a good night’s sleep. It was very comfortable on the balcony so we sat out there for the better part of the day. Not many days left on the cruise and once we get to Croatia things will cool off so we may not be able use the balcony. Master Chef Alfredo Marzi returned to the ship and held a Culinary Class, Betty didn’t go because she fell asleep and I didn’t wake her. Also the UN official gave another talk, titled “The Arab Spring-The Struggle for Human Rights in Todays World”. Betty went to this one and found it informative. I spent the afternoon on the balcony drinking a few cold ones, and watching the crazy dolphins. We’ve been seeing a lot of them lately. Also in the distance sailing parallel to us was a Navy Cruiser, makes us feel more secure.
During the night we will continue sailing through the Gulf of Aden.
April 18 Day 2
Again we had a good night of sleep. The weather is very hot and sunny today. At 12:30 p.m. we entered the traffic separation scheme for the Bab el Mandeb, this is the southern entrance to the Red Sea. Then at 3:30 p.m. we exited the Bab el Mandeb and entered the Red Sea setting a north westerly course, we passed Hanish Al Kubra, Yemen at 5:30 p.m. We will continue this north westerly course during the night.
Master Chef Marzi had another culinary class and Betty went to this one. This afternoon we had celebrity speaker Tab Hunter discuss his 50 years in Hollywood. Also showing on TV are his movies, The Burning Hills, That Kind of Woman, and Damn Yankees. Of course we did trivia also with our usual average showing. Tonight’s show was the International Crew Show, and it was very funny, as these usually are. They only had 5 people performing from the working crew and all were talented. The ship’s dancers also put on a skit and we were rolling on the floor with laughter, we haven’t laughed like that for a long time. Then the Cruise Director’s staff did a song If I wasn’t on the sea I would be a _______ and each one was different. A lot of passengers don’t like it since they have seen it a hundred times but being our first time we found it amusing.
We will to continue to sail a north westerly heading through out the night.
April 19 Day 3
It is very hot and humid this morning and very hazy. BBC reported a sand storm for Egypt and Jordan for today and Friday. Let’s hope it is over by the time we get to Petra. Not much going on around the ship. Did trivia twice, it was Italian day at lunch and both of us ate too much. We did not go to the dining room for dinner and got hamburgers and took them to the cabin, hoping to sit on the balcony but it was too windy. Earlier in the day we watched the movie Battle Cry with Tab Hunter, it was a good movie considering how old it is. Betty is feeling 90% better and will be good to go for our tour in Jordan. We started packing our suitcases, giving away lots of our clothes and other items. Our cabin steward said the ship will donate all items left to charity. I packed my suits so now we will miss the last formal night. Looks like we will be able to get everything into 4 suitcases along with one carry-on and a backpack. Not bad considering we came with 5 suitcases.
April Day 4
Finally we reached our fourth sea day, still sailing the Red Sea on the same course. It is very windy, the sea was rough during the night and continues to be that way today. We had breakfast with Tab Hunter this morning as I had a few old photographs of him that he said he would like to have. Surprisingly he had never seen these, they were publicity photos from the old Cleveland Press. He is in pretty good shape for his age and we had a very enjoyable talk. They had another Culinary Class with Chef Marzi and Betty attended. We had a port talk on Alexander, Egypt, most passengers will be going to Cairo from here to see the Pyramids. Having seen them we will visit the city of Alexander so the info will come in handy. Our table-mate, Woody, is sick and quarantined to his room under doctors care. Hope he gets better soon. We went to the show tonight as it was a encore performance of the Jimmy Tamley, a ventriloquist as people said he was good and they were right.
Early tomorrow morning at around 1:00 a.m. we will enter the Strait of Tiran, once clear of the Strait we will enter the Gulf of Aqaba and set a north easterly course. At 6:00 a.m. we will embark the local pilot and set final courses towards Aqaba and should be docked by 7:00 a.m.
