Day 13 Hawaiian Cruise

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Hawaiian Cruise Day 13- Ensenada Mexico 4pm-7:30pm
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Forecast: Partly cloudy, High 70 F Low 56 F
Sunrise 6:11 Sunset 4:50 pm. Minus one hour from California Time
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This morning despite the forecast, the sky is clear and the winds are down. Its not a "shorts and tank top" day but I know that many will be seeking the sunburn bronze today in and around the pools.

The ship seems strangely quiet today. Lots of readers with their books and ribbon lei making going on around the ship.

Most of the readers are into their books. There were only 6 kindles/electronic books noted in the promenade lounges where people often go during the day to read or look for some quite time.

I picked up our DVD collection at the photo booth. 4 DVD's. Two were pro stock like photos taken in Hawaii and our ship. Two other DVDs were produced by the photographic staff for our particular cruise with footage of our crew members . Total cost was $39.00. A bargain and insurance from my perspective.

At lunch, as usual, I went for a shared table. Sitting next to me was a elderly man and his wife. They were not happy with the menu. They grumbled under their breaths about the menu being the worst they had encountered on the ship and almost got up and left. They would have done so if they had not had mobility issues and had paid the physical price to get there. They registered their concerns to the waiter who tried his best to find a choice that would fit their needs. He finally chose a cheese soup with ham . When it came he grumbled that their wasn't much ham in it. His sandwich came, it was a grilled tomato and cheese sandwich. I took one look at it and said that it was too spicy.

I enjoyed the linguini with tomato sauce, broccoli, and fresh peppers. My second entree was the Portuguese stew. It was a thick chippino type soup with smaller pieces of fish related ingredients. I suspect it had as its base the lobster and the shrimp from the night before. It was very tasty but certainly beyond the spice range of the couple next to me. The wife had a "health cup" of sliced fruit for desert. She had a grilled chicken salad for her lunch meal. They were both much more pleasant once they had some food going down.  He had 2 scoops of ice cream. The couple from KC had a hamburger and they joined me in ordering peach pie with vanilla ice cream for desert.  It also had a dollop of creme fresch to go with the pie.

The Kansas City couple were St. Louis cardinal fans. They were basking in the limelight of their team's World Series victory. They also liked hockey and were fans of the NHL St. Louis Blues as well as their minor league hockey team in KC.. He currently works for Honeywell which has collected and changed and merged a couple of times from the original Bendix. Basically it is a defense industry supplier.
They said that they enjoyed the solitude of the cruise.

I watched the naturalist's power point  lecture on the pelicans (brown) and the penipods (sea lions) in the smaller presentation theater. These were animals that could be seen as we headed into the Baja coast.

I first saw land at 1:30 this afternoon. It was a few island off the Baja Coast.

The bay of Ensenada was much larger than I expected. I watched as we picked up the pilot on the south side of the ship and hour away from docking at the port.

Passengers were warned of strange additions being added to alcohol drinks ashore. This changed the idea s of many going ashore fore most of the passengers. Rumors of big weapons etc. also heightened the panic.

A fancy yacht was passing us as we were heading in. It was headed for Fiji.

We did not go ashore, but I had some fun taking photos of the sunset and the shore lights from the top of the ship.

We worked to get all of our stuff back into the bags this night as they needed to be out in the hall before we left for dinner. All that we held back were the items that we needed to get off the ship and check through the customs and immigration.

I got a card and some cash ready for Rosalie who had been so patient in working around our erratic schedule.

Our waiter was teasing us that all they would have for this dinner would be meatloaf. I think that he did that to see the reaction of the passengers.
We had more than that.. but in the fury of getting everything back into the suitcases.. I didn't write it down.