Day 65 At Sea

It has been a puzzling two days at sea. Up to this point, many of you may have thought I was on the payroll of Holland America because I have continually said what a tremendous job they have been doing on this Grand World Voyage,…. and they have. I do have one item of confusion to bring up. Yesterday morning while I was laying out by the pool I noticed quite a significant course change so I pulled out my GPS to see where we were heading and noticed we were cooking along about 23 Knots, just about full speed. Then comes a most curious announcement by the Captain announcing they we were going to deviate from our course to Nha Trang, Vietnam (our next port) to swing by and make a service call to Hong Kong to drop off a couple of maintenance technicians who were finished their work and needed to be on their way. I have never, in all my cruises (especially Grand Voyages) seen such a thing. I just find it amazing…. Oh by the way, perhaps my views are tainted by our marginal weather today where we are seeing the effects of a monsoon somewhere out there. I guess shuttling maintenance techs trumps the Grand Voyage. Big deal? No, as long as HAL doesn’t lose sight of the fact that the Grand World Voyage should come first. Some of my friends in the aft cabins were feeling a lot of vibrations from the engines yesterday as we cooked along but no big deal. I just find the whole thing mystifying based on the very little information released…. Sounds like a corporate finance decision. That aside, I included a couple of shots of some stowaways from Shanghai. Today’s weather, as previously mentioned, was marginal for the most part with occasional glimmers of sunlight. Lots of fishing boats along the way… Tomorrow we will be on our final day at sea working our way from the Hong Kong area to Vietnam…. Oh yeah, almost forgot…. I have a new addiction! I had such a great massage yesterday I went for another 1 ½ hours today…. Save me!