SAILING THE PACIFIC!

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Today the seas were a little calmer, but the air was too cold for me. My room service Continental breakfast (sliced melon, croissant, and coffee) was delivered at 7:30 a.m. TK felt a lot better and had breakfast on the Lido deck (buffet). I won a hydrolift facial and went to the spa at 9 a.m. to enjoy this treat. My face glows now.

Our Cruise Critic “Meet and Mingle” was at 10 a.m. in the Club Cool lounge. There were about 30 people who introduced themselves. Our diverse group has people from California to Florida. Most on board seem to be from California and Arizona. Donna liked our Erie gift, especially the Lake Erie beach glass. TK and I ended up with a gift from Sacramento: a Sacramento shot glass and a “Bag O’Sacra-Tomatoes” candy “gourmet marionberry taffy.” On the bag it read, “California grows 95% of the nation’s food industry tomatoes! These tomatoes are especially bred for the food industry which turns them into everything from ketchup to pizza sauce. The most amazing fact is that all these tomatoes are grown by only 225 growers in the Central Valley! And since most of those growers are centered around Sacramento it has given rise to the nickname-Sacra-tomato.” Wendy and Marty of Sacramento said it is actually known as “Sack o’ tomatoes.” The candy is quite tasty. I need to Google marionberries.

I read the Panama Canal book most of the day. TK entered the slot tournament with no luck. We dined with Donna and Lawrence again—flat iron steak and caramel crème brulee. Lawrence’s witticisms abound. E.g. “If a doctor told me I had to lose weight, I’d take off my clothes.” Today he brought Donna an omelet by the pool. She mentioned that she needed salt. He replied, “Jump overboard. There’s plenty of salt in the ocean.”

Saturday’s show was a so-so magic show with Woody Pittman. We all stayed in the show lounge for the midnight R-rated comedy show with Tom McGillen. Since we had to set the time ahead an hour, we returned to our cabin at 2 p.m.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Today was sunny and much warmer (70s) and after a Cruise Critic get together (kindly arranged by Brian) with 7 senior officers, including the captain (Guiseppe Donato), the chief engineer (Vito Antonelli), the physician, the hotel director, and the cruise director, we headed for the “beach.” I am confused about why Carnival buys the worst lounge chairs. They are not designed for reading comfortably.

Nancy and Donna convinced me to go on that 72 ft. spiral water slide and it was so much fun, I did it again! This is probably the first time I have been in the water on a cruise ship since the early 90s!

Donna and Lawrence stopped over to finish watching the football game before dinner-they wanted Milwaukee to win and the game went to overtime. Tonight’s dinner was lobster and prime rib.

TK’s Takes: He did not even place in the Slot Tournament today. The water is still a little cool—trying out the aft pool. He misses a big screen TV for watching football like those on last year’s cruises.

The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster, 1977)
This morning I finished this meaningful book and I am glad both TK and I read it. I am so moved by the effort that was expended to build this tribute to the human spirit.

From p. 613, “The creation of a water passage across Panama was one of the supreme human achievements of all time, the culmination of a heroic dream of four hundred years and of more than twenty years of phenomenal effort and sacrifice. The fifty miles between the oceans were the hardest ever won by human effort and ingenuity, and no statistics on tonnage or tolls can begin to convey the grandeur of what was accomplished. Primarily the canal is an expression of that old and noble desire to bridge the divide, to bring people together. It is a work of civilization.”

I will experience this water passage, this supreme human achievement, this “masterpiece in design and construction.”
Other things about this “Monument for the World” that interested me:
§ From the first time they were first put in use the locks performed perfectly.
§ The complete transit required about 12 hours. I wonder if that is true today.
§ The average toll in 1975 was $10,000 per ship. I am anxious to know what it is now.
§ For all general appearances the canal remains the same as the day it opened.
§ With the French work and the American work, approximately 30,000 people died during the building of the canal (disease/construction accidents)
§ The time and cost of the American construction was less than anticipated.
§ An earthquake struck four days after the last gates were opened for the first time. It lasted more than an hour with a level of magnitude greater than the San Francisco quake of 1906. Walls cracked in Panama City, there were landsides in the interior, and a church fell, but the locks and Gatun Dam were untouched.
§ The young General Electric Company had a great part in the perfect efficiency of the entire electrical system. (p. 601: “The canal, declared one technical journal, would be a ‘monument to the electrical art.’ It had been less than a year since the first factory in the United States had been electrified.” The canal opened in 1914.
§ Operation of the locks would depend on 1,500 electric motors. All controls were electrical. General Electric Company produced approximately half the electrical apparatus needed during construction and virtually all the motors, relays, switches, wiring, and generating equipment that was installed permanently, in addition to towing locomotives and all the lighting.