Day 64 - 12/09/23 - At Sea to Devil's Island

 We woke up this morning well out into the Atlantic where the water has lost its brown color.  Because this morning was the Mariner Society awards ceremony there were no lectures.  After our interdenominational Bible study, we ate breakfast and then attended the Awards ceremony in the World Stage.  For the first time we knew at least 5 couples who received awards and none of them had we cruised with previously.  There was also a fellow who has over 3,000 days cruising and after this cruise and the one following will have the highest number of sea days of any passenger on Holmans America. Missing from the presentation was Florin, our Hotel Director, who reportedly was under the weather.  He sure seemed okay at our officer's dinner last night.  In his place, Ron, the Food & Beverage Manager joined Captain Smit in passing out the awards.    He's also done 12 back to back World Cruises. This was followed by a terrific lunch in the Main Dining Room (I had the filet) where we joined a couple from the Netherlands.  We enjoyed some very pleasant conversation with them.

Our friends, Bill & Solange, receiving their awards from Captain Smit and Ron, Food & Beverage Manger 

Our afternoon started with another lecture by Andy Fletcher about Albert Einstein: General Relativity, Black Holes, Big Bang and More Weirdness.  We then watched the first of two movies on this hot Saturday afternoon at sea.  The first was Papillon about a fellow who finally successfully escaped from Devil's Island after being falsely imprisoned there.  It was a brutal movie.  


After the evening entertainment which was Lisa Harman, a piano vocalist from the UK, we watched Pele: The Birth of a Legend which was quite good.  It's the story of Pepe who is legendary in the soccer world and a champion player from Brazil.




Tomorrow we'll be at Devil's Island and we're planning to do some nature exploring.

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