With Adelaide as our last port of destination, we have officially entered the Indian Ocean and cruised three days through the Great Australian Bight, which literally looks as if a Megladon had taken a chunk out of the southern coast of Australia. Despite encountering three days of cross swell, the stabilizers on Crystal Serenity were amazing, keeping the ship from pitching side-to-side to an absolute minimum; no glasses of wine gliding across the tabletops and no dancers falling from the stage. But cleverly, the Capitan kept our attention away from the cross swell by reminding us to set our clocks back one hour almost every night in this part of the world–– one night a half-hour. We now all have sleep credits we can use in the future.

So what is there to do for three days at sea? I am reminded by that classic Honeymooners episode: “Can it core an apple, you ask?. Yes.. It can core a apple…. there are too many options to choose from.

Here is a typical sea day for us. The day starts at sunrise because we have been gaining an hour each night. We turn on the TV to catch the financial news (after the bell), check up on emails and most importantly, answer comments from those of you who are following along with us on this cruise. Thank you. If you reply to a post and don’t immediately see your comment, fear not. A follower’s “first” comment needs to be reviewed by me to make sure you are not a bot scouring the web trying to post adverts for reducing inflamed organs of any type. After your first comment, you will see future comments posted immediately. Keep your questions coming, because I love answering them.

Our next order of business is to map out our sea day and the images below show a typical day at sea, where you can see, there is everything to do between A and… Z. You thought I was going to say A to C didn’t you?

Then it is off to breakfast. After breakfast we walk the deck (4 laps) for a mile and a quarter, then off to the first lecture. Lectures are usually offered: 10, 11 & 1:30 on sea days. The topics are vast and so informative.

If a lecture does not interest you, then how about attending a golf clinic with our onboard Pro?

After a golf clinic we head over to the main theater (Galaxy Lounge) to attend the 11:00 AM lecture, which brings us to noon.

With minutes to spare, we dash up to the observation lounge and join our trivia team. No winnings yet, but we feel much smarter than our score reflects. The True/False questions are our Achilles heel– no matter what strategy we employ, we never get it right! “True!” Wrong. “Okay, our gut says it’s true, so pick false!” Wrong… “Okay, we agree it’s false, and we know we should pick true, so let’s pick false!” Wrong….

Then it is off to lunch.

After lunch, we head back to the 1:30 lecture series. On this particular day, we went to the 2:30 showing of, Oppenheimer in the Movie Theater–– with warm buttered and salted popcorn.

After the movie, we were chatting with a Gentleman (Dr Gerald Mayfield) and Meredith asked him is he enjoyed the movie. He replied he did. Then with a pause, he told us that when he was a boy of 12, growing up in New Mexico, he was out one early morning milking the cows when the horizon lit up. He was about seventy miles away and after some time the windows rattled. The news carried a story about a munitions depot that exploded on the military base. But after the bombs were dropped on Japan he put 2 and 2 together. He had witnessed the Trinity test.

As fate would have it, years later, stationed in Hawaii, he witnessed the last Hydrogen bomb test. How amazing to see the first and last atomic bomb tests in a lifetime.

I then showed him one test he did not attend: Miss Atomic Bomb of 1957.

Another four laps along the promenade, then back to the room to chill out, shower and change. Then the most important task of the day is the dress shot!

Then dinner and a show and a nightcap and the day is complete.