Saturday July 17th. 2010

Ahoy there,

We are now aboard Maasdam, and in our home away from home for the next 35 days. Dorothy is busy unpacking and hanging things up, putting things in drawers and I'm supervising at a safe distance...

There's a bit of a breeze across the decks ridding us of some of the humidity, so we are not dragging butt as much as yesterday. We have a day at sea tomorrow so we can veg out after the busyness of "Bawston"

I hear the ships whistle calling us to mandatory life boat drill, the rules have been changed and, they now no longer require us to don life jackets, for safety reasons I'm told ????

Tomorrow is the 18th and will be the first of 10 formal nights and our 46th. year of togetherness, I've booked a table for two in the Pinnacle grill to celebrate this millstone, OOPS, milestone, what a difference one letter makes!

We were feeling quite peckish by the time we went for dinner, it's early seating these days at 5:45, the late seating is at 8:30 and a bit late for us. We have a nice table for 6, overlooking the wake, another nice couple from Calgary and two single gentlemen one from Florida and I forget the other. I had mussels, a gazpacho soup, New York strip, and a decadent dessert. Dorothy had a spinach, mushroom and gorgonzola cheese salad with an Italian dressing. Fruit plate for dessert. It was very good.

We are still zapped of energy but tomorrow is another day and we'll feel much better after a good nights sleep..Ste. Pierre is a French colony giving them some claim to fishing rights. It's not a very large island and we'll just go for a walk about and see what the locals do for fun.

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying summer/winter for those down under and you know who you are.

Till next time

Love n hugs

Tony & Dorothy

SUNDAY JULY 18th.

Our early night turned out to be not so early, (A) because the clocks went forward an hour (the joy of east bound travel) and (B) as soon as my head hit the pillow my mind went into overdrive and I ended up reading till 0100, I was up at 0600, did my ablutions had brekky in our stateroom then joined Dorothy on Promenade deck for a walk. One of the benefits of traveling with HAL is, they are one of the few shipping lines who still have a wrap around deck, and 4 circuits equals one mile, I did 2 laps and Dorothy did her usual 8.

When we opened our cabin door this morning there were white paper bells hanging there with some colored butterflies and our slot had some wedding anniversary cards which we thought was a nice touch.

I tried to blog last night but the satellite was acting up ,hopefully I can get it away today.