Sunday, April 1, 2018

Day 46- Saturday, March 31, 2018 - At Sea to Tianjin , China - Day 1

The window of sailing opportunity opened this morning around 3:30am for us to finally sail out of our berth at the International Cruise Terminal located near the Bund. I remember the ship vibrating before I dozed off to resume my sleep. When I finally woke up around 8am I could see the banks 
of the Yangtze passing by. It takes around 7 hours to transit the Huangpu and Yangtze rivers and reach the open ocean. In the Captain's speach at his welcome toast, he noted that he had a 1/2 hour window of opportunity to sail out of the port.

The rest of the day was really laid back. We listened to Master Kam's lecture on modern China where he emphasized education of the elderly. It was really good. In the afternoon we skipped the BBC trivia game show and attended a makeup wine tasting that we missed the previous day. Two Washington state wines were featured and we learned a bit more about wines and how fruits and cheeses enfluence the taste of the wine. Afterwards I spent time preparing for the Easter Sunrise service which I'm leading and did some reading.

We enjoyed a Lido dinner with Erik and Marilyn before attending the Captain's Toast and the Main Stage show featuring Grant Galea, an Australian singer of Las Vegas style music. He did very good impressions of a number of artists. We even came back for the 10pm performance.

At the Captain's Toast, Captain Frank Vanderhoeven gave further details about the delay in Shanghai. He spoke like he was sitting across from you on a couch, and it wasn't stilted like a prepared speech. He's rotating off the ship in Yokohama for 3 months.

The fog is very thick tonight and the fog horn is blowing every 2 minutes and will likely do so all night.

Stay tuned for what tomorrow brings.

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