Noon Report:

• Location: S 11° 13.70′, E 123° 07.90′
• Speed: 15 knots
• Course: 265º (That’s due west!)
• Weather: Cloudy
• Temperature: 28º C, 82º F
• Wind: W 23 knots, 26.5 mph
• Swell: 11 ft.

We’ve been rockin’ and rollin’ since yesterday afternoon and it’s gotten a bit worse since this morning.

When I got up this morning the weather report on our stateroom TV said the winds were from the west at 31 mph gusting to 39 mph. That’s a headwind of 27 knots gusting to 34 knots. Adding the ship’s speed of 15 knots we’re talking 42 – 49 knots (48 – 56 mph) They closed the track on Deck 2.

I tried a lap on Deck 8 and decided that even a treadmill would be better than that much wind.

On my way down to the gym I noticed that the 6:30 am ‘Walk a mile with Senior Staff’ crew were actually walking on the inside of Deck 2. I thought it looked like it was worth a try. It’s not as enjoyable as walking on the outside circuit but it’s much better than a treadmill. I did an abbreviated 3 miles and called it good.

After a leisurely breakfast we returned to the room for a few minutes of reading the paper and then moved down to the Theatre for a couple of lectures on Indonesia – one focused on their move to independence following WWII and the other specifically looking at Bali – history, culture, current economic situation and strategies, must-see sights, stuff like that.

Cheryl’s Factoids:

• Indonesia is a democratic Muslim nation AND the MOST POPULOUS Muslim nation in the world. It follows Sunni Muslim traditions which means its leader is a secular person.
• Modern Indonesia is rapidly becoming one of the wealthiest countries in the world with its abundance of minerals added to its growing manufacturing to provide (among other things essential to future clean energy of the planet) batteries for electronic vehicles.
• Strategically the country is moving from being a provider of raw materials to being a provider of finished goods made from those raw materials (exporting car batteries rather than the raw materials used to make the batteries).
• It has positioned itself as a neutral nation trading with China AND the US and ALL countries, thus making itself a calming influence on aggressive “neighbors”.
• The US hopes their peaceful Muslim stance will show other Muslim nations how to better interact with the rest of the world.

It was during the second lecture that we got a text from daughter Kim. They were under a tornado watch and she wanted to know if we could access the Hi-Def Radar app from this side of the world. We spent some time watching the Tornado Warning boxes move over their area while swapping texts. They eventually moved to their tornado shelter when their watch became a warning, but only for a few minutes. They’re safe. We haven’t received any additional information because they have no power or internet and texts are spotty. It’s hard being on this side of the world when stuff like this happens. (They eventually got thru – all good, but kids have a ‘Tornado Day’ on Tuesday because there’s no power.)

After lunch it was back to the stateroom and put Cheryl to bed while Randy worked on today’s blog post.

At 2:00 we headed up to the pool deck for the Sea Trials of the Ship Building Competition. There were some pretty creative entries. The entries were judged by a team of: Captain, Chief Engineer, Head of Security, and Hotel Manager. Judging was on 5 categories: Originality of design, Engineering, Use of recycled materials, Back story about the boat, and whether it passed the Sea Trial (floating in the hot pool for 20 seconds without sinking or capsizing – originally the boat was supposed to float in the swimming pool, however the sea is so rough today the water in the pool is madly surging a good 3 feet against the sides of the pool).

At 4:00 Cheryl had a hair appointment

while at 4:30 Randy attended a forum put on by our resident historian on the role the US played in Indonesian independence.

This was followed at 6:30 by a lecture that we both attended:

Then it was dinner…

…and BBB (12/25 – We started strong but faded down the stretch.)

After some time hanging out with our BBB team we headed back to the stateroom to write this up, read, sleep, dream about dragons.

So I think I will. R