Day 91/138 2022/2023 Viking Neptune World Cruise. Third sea day before Sri Lanka.
The Indian Ocean was absolutely stunning today! The clouds were reflecting off the surface of the ocean as we sailed today. I think today’s sailing was on the calmest seas we have experienced on this entire World Cruise. To see a body of water as large as the India Ocean look like glass was pretty amazing!
I spent some time this morning finishing up yesterday’s art project. The internet was spotty and since I needed to finish up my art project, I flipped between doing art and writing the blog, until I was able to get my art work done.
Man on a bicycle eating an ice cream cone. We used salt to create the stucco effect on the walls of the building. I am learning, and advancing and I see where I could be doing better, but overall, the artist I am not, is a lot better than before I came onboard, so that is really positive!
I finally got the last 3 days days blogs published this morning and after I did that, I took a nap! Not being a napper it was a bit weird for me to need a morning nap, but I slept for an hour. I guess what Richard says is true. He always says “Listen to your body”. So today I listened.
I did wake up in time to get to trivia. Today we did really well, but we were still 3 points off winning. My goal is for our trivia team to win the 12:15pm trivia before we get off this ship!
In art class today we were working on a project called ‘Working in the Fields’ in 3D and shadows. I didn’t quite finish my project in class, so I brought it back to our cabin with my own paints and brushes and finished it up.
Working in the Fields.
After I finished my artwork we decided to go downstairs to the Viking computers and do some research for our time in Sri Lanka, because the computers are also hooked up to printers, so we could print whatever I researched. We have one long full day excursion booked through Viking tomorrow, golf the next day, and Independent exploration on Day 3. What I wanted to be sure of was that we had maps for where we were going and that we knew what we should be seeing on Day 1 and Day 3. I saw quite a few people at the computers who were either printing out their Viator reservations, or were searching on Viator for excursions, since the Elephant Orphanage excursion through Viking was cancelled. It is difficult for everyone who was doing that excursion to now pivot and find another Viking excursion, when many of the excursions are already sold out. I have talked to quite a few people who are trying to figure out what to do for one of their days in Sri Lanka now that they have a free day. Enough about excursions….I’m sure you’ve heard my thoughts on them many times already.
We heard that our ship’s Captain will be leaving us tomorrow in Sri Lanka. He lives in Denmark and he has been onboard for 8 weeks. The rotation is 8 weeks on and 8 weeks off for ships’ captains. We have enjoyed his noon sea day announcements, and while we have not had the chance to get to know him, others who have spent time with him, have really enjoyed his company. We understand that our original Captain who was with us in Ft. Lauderdale, will be re-joining in Sri Lanka for the balance of the World Cruise.
After spending an hour or so in the Living Room, we decided to head back to our cabin to change for dinner. As I looked out on the balcony I could see that sunset was quite spectacular, but I couldn’t quite capture it from the angle of our balcony, so I said to Richard “Let me just grab my camera and let’s go up to the Explorer’s Lounge to watch the sunset”.
The sunset over Sri Lanka. We could see the lights off our starboard side of Hambantota, the largest port in the south of Sri Lanka.
As we were watching the sunset, the moon was very visible in the sky and we wondered what that light was beside the moon?
The moon and the planet Venus!
Venus, the brightest planet in our solar system came close to our solar system as it inched closer to the moon. The moon trumped the brightness of Venus by nearly 250 times, thanks to how close the moon is to earth. I have never seen Venus before, so being able to see it tonight over Sri Lanka was pretty special.
And just as we were getting over being awestruck about the sunset, and seeing Venus so close to the moon, Richard yells out “I see dolphins!” We saw 7 dolphins jumping out of the pitch black Indian Ocean, greeting us as we sailed closer to Sri Lanka! Unfortunately we did not get any pictures of the dolphins because it was too dark, but we did enjoy watching them jump out in front of the Neptune. We’re feeling like Sri Lanka is some magical, mystical place by this point in the evening!
So let’s see….I grabbed my camera, just to capture the sunset and so far we’ve seen the sunset, seen the lights from Hambantota, seen Venus near the moon, seen dolphins jumping out of the Indian Ocean and just when we didn’t think it could get much better, we started to see lots and lots of colourful orange and purple sheet lightening over Sri Lanka. Unbelievable! We hit the motherload of good times to be on the front of the ship tonight!
I will not be able to load the video that we took of the lightening to the blog, but hopefully I can upload it to my Facebook page.
It sure is funny how sometimes when you least expect it, you see things you by chance that make you say ‘Wow’! I am sure glad I decided to grab my camera today for some early evening shooting up on the Explorer’s Deck. Our dinner plans went out the window, but who cares? Seeing what we saw tonight will be a magical moment that becomes a beautiful memory tomorrow. Isn’t that why we travel? To make beautiful memories? I think so.
We are looking forward to three busy days in Sri Lanka. The blogs might be delayed with the travel time we have tomorrow and our plans for the next day, so please be patient. I will get the blogs written, when we are not out all day galavanting all over Sri Lanka!