January 29 - “Unusual, to be sure”

Yesterday was … unusual, to be sure. Oh, there were no exciting shoes excursions. There wasn’t even a fabulous musical production by the ship’s performance team. In fact it was just a day at sea. That’s all. The high point of our travel was the sighting of a southern point of the Jaragua National Park in the Dominican Republic. It was about 20 miles away. We did walk a few laps around the ship to get some steps in (and to keep working off the calories from all the food). 

But the hardest part of it all was the time change. It was wreaking absolute havoc on our systems as we tried to adjust. Our watches and phones gave up trying. Best I could figure, it went like this. We left Galveston in the central time zone. Somewhere before Key West our phones GPS switched to Eastern time, and the ship announced a tine change to match. Then things got a little crazy. 

As we sailed further East, we apparently hit the Atlantic zone, and our phones adjusted. The ship did not. So we had to remember to subtract an hour. Then as we sailed back west, the ship announced another time change. But not to match where we were. No. The ship was now back on Galveston’s Central time. But our phones were still on Atlantic time, so now there was a two hour difference as we headed for Jamaica. Our bodies didn’t know when it was time for breakfast or lunch or dinner. We finally just succumbed and took a nap. Good thing we had a manual clock in our room or we would’ve been completely lost. 

We did have one near-catastrophe in the afternoon. The toilet wouldn’t flush. We went out to report it to the steward. He was already on the phone reporting another room. And while we waited for him to complete his phone call, a lady from a room down the hall approached with the same difficulty. Whew! Three in one. Tough day for that poor steward. 

It got worse. As we walked down the stairs we ran into another steward just leaving a public bathroom … where the toilet didn’t flush. And then another around the corner. This could have been a real nightmare. We trusted the process, though, and went about our ambling. Sure enough, by the time we returned to the room for that aforementioned nap, all was well in the plumbing department. ‘Twas but a momentary glitch. 

We had a very leisurely dinner with our new friends Jay and Brenda, Bill and Pam, and Shelley (I thought her name was Kelley. Got that clarified last night). The first four are all Christians, so we talked about church experiences  (Jay and I were both raised Episcopalian), told stories about past cruises (We are the rookies in that category. Both couples have been on many, many more than us for many, many more years), and compared the respective health of each other’s spouses (the ladies seem to have a monopoly on all the medical issues, while us guys can eat what we want and seem to have no issues at all).

After dinner we went to the mentalist performance. Every time I hear that word I think about that TV show, The Mentalist. It was a fun one. We’ll have to find it and binge it when we get back. This guy was named Banachek. He was apparently a Las Vegas headliner. He was a pretty good entertainer along with being good at what he does. 

And now we set foot on Jamaica, our last port before heading home to Galveston. 

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭4‬:‭6‬ says, Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

Father, bless our dinner companions. Give them a safe and fun rest of the cruise. Amen.