What Luck!

The fates are smiling on me! I’ve somehow managed to get my very own cabin for the crossing of the Atlantic. One of the Caribbean deck bands got off before the crossing, so the musicians have some empty cabins. The bandmaster offered my roommate the opportunity for a single since he has seniority among the group, so now I have some space until Southampton. Maybe I’ll luck out and get to keep the cabin even longer, but I’m not holding my breath. There have also been rumors that we may have a dry dock for a few days in Southampton. A dry dock is when the ship stays in port for repairs and we would be without passengers, so I would just have to punch my card in the ship every 72 hours to keep getting paid. Last year the ship ended up in dry dock for an entire cruise (2 weeks!), so I might get to see more of England than I anticipated. This is all based on rumors and speculation.

I’ve actually enjoyed my first day of crossing. It’s quite awesome to look on the horizon and see nothing but water and try to fathom the vastness of the ocean. It’s huge! And there’s an entirely different world living under there. I glimpsed a tip of the iceberg (that’s probably a really ill-advised metaphor to use!) today, as I saw some flying fish while I was walking the deck. I ate flying fish in Barbados so it was nice to see them alive as well! The name pretty much describes itself – a fish with wings! They were flying away from the spray of the ship, so I felt a bit guilty for intruding their home. I also found myself thinking of how my great grandparents crossed the Atlantic nearly a century ago and how different the conditions would have been. For one, they didn’t have satellites to entertain them with television, phones, and internet!

Hopefully the novelty of the crossing will last the entire week!