May 30, The Queen Mary 2 at Sea

Saturday, May 30 - Day 115 - The Queen Mary 2 at Sea

Sunrise is at 4:25 and it is a very messy morning. Dick is up and has been up about an hour. He was over served last night and has not slept well. He does manage a little more sleep from about 5 to 7AM. All the extra hours sleep...3 hours now...are messing up Carolyn also as she wakes up about 7! We read and mess on the computer for awhile then go to breakfast. Not too many people are out and about yet as it is windy and misty.

Today we continue on the great circle track taking us South of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and the wreck of the Titanic. Later today we will sail over some of the deepest sections of the Atlantic Ocean with soundings in this area of over 4500 meters or 2.5 miles. Later this evening we will pass over the Flemish Cap, a shallow of about 102 meters in the otherwise 3.500 meter deep ocean floor.

There is a ship wide drill at 10 which last about an hour. Most services are on hold and there is no formal entertainment until 11:15 when the lectures start. Carolyn goes to hear Bill Miller lecture on" Martine Royalty: Britain’s Queens of the Atlantic". She enjoys stuff on the Queens, but Dick gives it a pass. He does join her at noon for Robert Marshall’s talk "History of the Newsreels from Edison to D-Day". The title sounds rather dry but we are pulled into the topic because his grandfather was a WWII reporter and Robert will show some of his grandfather’s rarely seen personal color footage of Normandy and the liberation of Paris. Dick wants to see if it is new to him as he eats this stuff up. It is a good talk and the video clips and stills are all good. Dick hadn’t seen very little of the footage before. The CD of all the footage is for sale in the Bookstore so Dick buy’s it and get Robert to sign the container.

Back in the room we are lazy most of the afternoon reading and playing on the computer. Carolyn orders a turkey sandwich from the dinning room menu and Dick goes for a walk and grabs an ice cream from the Kings Court. By 2:30PM the sun is out with small white caps. The TV channel tells us the seas are moderate...but to us it is still smooth sailing. Carolyn goes to tea for the first time since we were on the Queen Elizabeth back in February. She doesn’t need any more food, but wanted to see the Queens Room and see the difference in the two ship’s service. The Queen Mary II’s tea is a little nicer mainly because the room is not part of a main passage way and is a lot quieter. The music was more easily heard and enjoyed.

Time to get ready for dinner, the early morning is catching up with us. We both have a Caesar salad, Dick has rack of pork chops with New York cheesecake and Carolyn has a grilled steak and a lemon bread pudding with a bottle of wine. We actually have a nice sunset about 8:20, but we are still in the dining room and Carolyn doesn’t have her camera. Maybe we will have another one tomorrow night. On the way back to the room we stop by the photo shop and pick out some pictures from last night and then head to bed.