MARCH 4, 2008 – IN TAIWAN STRAITS

We woke well before our 8 am alarm, got ready and went to Buffet for fruit and cottage cheese. Then we joined the other invitees for the
TOUR OF THE BRIDGE: Everything is behind locked doors. The officers’ quarters are immediately behind the bridge. I’m always surprised at how peaceful ships’ bridges are on these tours. We saw the equipment including much redundancy regarding compasses, gyros, etc. Many kymographs tracking the chlorination of the water on ship. Radar with paper charts as well. And a picture of the Virgin Mary; no I didn’t ask. We were allowed to go out on the wing and see everything there. It is larger than I had imagined and it has a part of the flooring that is glass and another part with metal grid so the Captain can see the dock. The command post here duplicates that in the bridge proper and has his “toys” to play with.
The Captain joined us and he is a great kidder. Clearly he loves his job. I asked about women Captains and he pushed all the usual macho buttons about women being temperamental and such. Always said with a wicked smile. He said they had one in the fleet and she’s actually very good but he doesn’t like women in the bridge staff because they are too distracting. Some French ladies grabbed one of the officers’ caps and had their photos taken along with him so Ed encouraged me to do the same. I’ll post the photo.
While I expected this tour to be interesting, I didn’t expect it to be as much fun as it was. We were given a pamphlet with details about the ship, for example about how they make water on board (lots of co-generation going on), and details about the security staff who are Ghurkas. No body dare mess around with those mild looking folks.
The bottom of the ship has only a meter between it and the bottom of the waterway in many locations, for example Shanghai and Hong Kong. We were teasing the Captain for the tight turns he makes with this ship in some very narrow port locations. The stabilizers are not used in tandem at all times; sometimes only one. They retract along the hull rather than being pulled into the ship as I had suspected.
TRIVIA: The whole gang showed up. Val’s eye continues to change color looking very bluish-black. We were all in good form and we won today. We would have gotten all but one correct if we had listened to a different team member for the answer. In the end it didn’t matter. The prizes today were water bottles. Apparently those in the past tasted terrible. These looked a little different so we may give it a go.
LUNCH: Joined some of the folks from the bridge tour and we reviewed what we learned. The other couple found there was a video camera pointed right at their patio. They were debating whether to share this new found information with other cabins with patios.
DRAWING: Ok, I did my best but no one would mistake my facial drawing for anyone known. The instructor is one of the dancers/cruise staff who is quite good. Several of the people who attended, and we had about equal male and female, were quite skilled.
SHIPPING LANES: We are seeing so many other vessels along our trip in these parts. Most are clearly without cargo and they are everything from a cargo ship to tankers. Clearly this is a busy area.
TRIVIA: It was just Ed and I, Ro and Murray. We did well by our smaller group: we again came in second. The prizes were passport holders so we weren’t too upset though Ro needs one more to fill the requests of her friends.
LIBRARY: We did the internet café and then the library to catch up on the news. As it turns out, I left my sweater in one of those places but it showed up in lost and found later where I claimed it.
DINNER: Twyla, Dave, Ed and I. Usual wide ranging conversation. We don’t know how Hank is doing but apparently he and Erna are back doing their water colors on deck 4 in the morning.
TONITE’S SHOW: A young Scottish lady who sings and plays various flutes. Her program was mostly classical with some Andrew Lloyd Weber and Lord of the Dance thrown in.
We have an early show up time in the morning for the tour of Macao so we’ll get to bed early I hope.