Anderson South American Adventure Day 7; At Sea Day - “What is that Touching my Leg in the Pool?” March 10, 2020

Rob went off to work out in the gym. I talked myself into going to swim. I made the mistake of taking my meds and vitamins before I swam. The seas were a little rough so the pool really had its own wave action going. I wanted to swim in the aft pool but there were not any towels out there so I swam in the Lido pool. There was a crew member mopping up water that had sloshed out of the pool and over the wall around the pool. I have learned, in these conditions do not leave your sandals on the floor because they might float away. The swim went pretty well once I got used to the waves. I kept finding little things in the pool. Most pools if you find a leaf or something you just put it on the edge. That will not work here, it will just get washed back in. Then some long thing touched my leg. EEK! It was some sort of long black thing with little legs coming off of it. I finally grabbed it. Ah, the net that they put over the pool at night must have torn and this was a piece of it. I gave it a good hurl and got it out of there. I now know that the other little black things in the pool are pieces of net. Much better! The water temp was very warm. If you swim laps you know that you do not want a warm pool. After about 25 minutes between the warm pool, waves and my vitamins I was not feeling great. I do not get seasick. Last year we were getting hit with 30 foot waves and I had no issues. Today I had to cut my workout short. Donna and I have started a knitting group on the ship. We meet upstairs in a nice section. We had four people and more who saw us knitting came over and said that they would join us tomorrow. We are meeting on “at sea” days. Always nice to meet new fiber people. In the center of the atrium there is a three story pipe organ with different figurines. I wanted to hear the organ play and today they were playing at 12:15 so we ate lunch early. The organ has a keyboard so I was expecting to see someone playing it. Nope, I also figured out that this is not actually a functioning pipe organ. They played recorded music, but different figurines on the pipes played percussion. OK, not what I wanted, but still interesting. Off to play trivia. Donna and Jim did not think that they would be at trivia. We had June who has played with us two other times. Then we just picked up single people who wanted to play. We tend to get tripped up on Harry Potter questions. None of us had read the books or seen the movies. Today we had a British woman who not only had seen a few of the movies and knew what was the only mythical character in the title of a Harry Potter book but also know how many Katherines Henry VIII was married to – three. We not only won again but we got all of the answers correct. We have always enjoyed the Lincoln Center Stage on Holland America cruises. They have a string quartet with a piano and play different programs. They do not have it on this cruise; it will be added as of April 21 but we will not be on the ship then. They do have a violin and piano, so we went to their afternoon program. They were OK, but not great. I expected a set performance. They would play a piece then discuss what they would play next and the pianist would dig for the music. Just no continuity. They played well, but there was no theme to it. Oh wow, we have nothing to do lets go to the room. We both crashed for a bit. Nice to relax. This was Gala Night. It used to be called Formal Night and men had to wear a suit or sport jacket. They actually had a rack of ratty old jackets for men to put on if they did not have one. It was a pain for Rob to pack his suit and good shoes for a cruise. Now he just has to wear a collared shirt and long pants. You still see sport jackets, suits, a tux or two and even a kilt now and then. We really enjoyed the two couples who sat with us tonight. We laughed a lot and shared stories. After dinner Rob did not want to just sit around the cabin so we went up to the Explorers Lounge to find a game to play. Nice to enjoy all aspects of the ship. When we got back to the room we saw a lovely full moon reflecting on the ocean. I got some good shots. Luckily the waves have died down and the wind was not bad. Not easy to get a night shot while on a moving object!