We both have lost 20 pounds so far on this cruise!!!
April 1
During the day we passed between Nicobar Island and Ten Degree Channel making our entry into the Bay of Bengal. Throughout the day we will maintain a West-North-West heading as we steam through the Bay of Bengal towards Chennai. About the only activity we did today was eat. We just laid around, it was a lazy day, we skipped all the lectures and the port talk on Chennai.
Tonight is formal night, as before, nothing special. Next Sunday is formal night again, Easter, so maybe they will do something different. The last one is at the end of the month which we will probably miss as we will start packing our luggage that will shipped home. We skipped the show tonight and instead watched a Scholarship at Sea lecture by Leslie Iwerks who is the granddaughter of the creator of Mickey Mouse. She made a document on her grandfather UB Iwerks and was nominated for a Academy Award. Without UB there would have never been a Mickey Mouse. Born in 1919, he and Walt Disney formed the Iwerks-Disney Company which never got off the ground. Then they invested in ‘Laff a gram Company’, but then filed bankruptcy. Walt Disney moved to California and Walt and Roy Disney formed Disney Brothers Studio. Walt convinced UB to come to California and he took the offer, becoming the highest paid employee of Disney, even paid more than Walt. He created the Oswald cartoon which was stolen from Disney. That is when Walt and UB created Mickey Mouse and the rest is history.
Overnight we will continue to sail across the Bay of Bengal to Chennai, India
April 2
This morning we had a “Pirate Safety Drill”, the crew and all passengers were exercised in anti-piracy protocols. I think they should just issue us rifles but that is not an option. Then we had to have a face-to-face passport examination with two officials from India. No wonder the visa was so expensive, they joined the ship in Thailand and cruised to India. We then attended a port lecture on Mumbai by our port lecturer Debbie. Lunch in the buffet today was a Italian Trattoria Luncheon, which is always good as the chefs are from Italy. We always eat too much on Italian and Mexican Days.
This afternoon we had another Scholarship at Sea lecture by astronomer David Dodge called “ How Venus Changed The Earth”. Betty went and was disappointed as he talked about Captain Cook’s explorations in the south seas. (I’m still trying to figure out what this had to do with Venus.) Today our trivia partners Richard & Irene were feeling better so we played twice today and did average. It was only the 4 of us in the morning and a new passenger joined our team this afternoon, Johan from Belgium now living in Vegas. (Note to Bill: I asked if he was familiar with feather bowling in Belgium, he said he’d never heard of it! Told him to take a drive to Detroit.)
We skipped the dining room, just got a sandwich and ate on our balcony. It has been one beautiful day, we sat out for over 6 hours and I am actually writing this on the balcony. It is 6:40 and the sun just set. We are sailing west so we had no direct sun all day. Decided to skip the show tonight. It was Dorothy Bishop, not sure what she does, but she was a finalist on America’s Got Talent. Apparently just not enough if she is performing on cruise ships.
We set our clocks back 1/2 hour tonight, India wants to be different I guess. Tonight we continue to steam a West-North-West heading and early in the morning we will alter our course onto a south westerly heading, embark a pilot and enter the dredged channel between the buoys, passing the break water and enter the harbor basin where we will make our way to our berth in Chennai.
