Be careful what you wish for…..

 I believe our very last post on our blog stated that we wouldn’t post anything while we were at sea unless something exciting happened. In fact our dining companions, Danny and Gaye, had mentioned at dinner 2 nights ago that though they were assigned to lifeboat 3, if ever anything went wrong they were going to hop on lifeboat 10 which sits right outside their cabin.

The sea has been very rough since we started our voyage across the Atlantic. All day Monday the swells had been 15 to 20 feet and we were literally rolling around on the decks. We were warned to hold on to the rails, wear flat shoes and things were cancelled to protect the employees and entertainers. Of course food was always served (you will never get them to cancel food!) but it was a very uncomfortable day and night. I, for the first time ever, was feeling seasick and went to bed with a couple of seasickness pills in my tummy. At dinner that evening, Monday, was when Danny mentioned the switch of lifeboats for them. We laughed thinking that would be funny as they were standing there taking roll and 2 Australian’s jumping the line and pulling a switch on everyone because it was right outside their bedroom.

Lo and behold at 4:30 AM an alarm sounded in our cabins, waking everyone from their deep sleep. It was 7 blasts. I literally jumped out of bed and yelled to Jim, “abandon ship” which then he mentioned to me that it had to be followed by one long blast, which it hadn’t. We got up turned on the lights and I started getting to work. Pants on, check, shoes on, check, medications in backpack, check, passports, check, warm shirt, don’t have one, borrow Jim’s, check. In the meantime the captain came on and announced that we had just heard the fire alarm. They would keep us posted. Then our cruise director came back on with the following report: all medical personnel report to their stations, all fire teams report, all lifeboat personnel report to their stations, all members of the customer support team report to their stations, etc and etc. Now we started taking things very seriously. I decided to put on all my valuable jewelry so that I would look nice when rescued. Jim was fully dressed and I was just about to have him throw in a couple of diet cokes when they came back on and told us the fire was out, go back to sleep and have a great night! Right! Like any of us could possibly relax and sleep another couple of hours. I don’t think so!

We got up around 6:30 am and found a breakfast being served. They mentioned that the fire was in the deep fat fryer and had spread quickly. We were still rocking and rolling all day Tuesday but at least we were safe and sound. We met our friends for dinner, had a great evening talking with them about what went on. They now had something they could share with their friends at home in Australia.

Today Wednesday seems like a calmer day at sea which we are glad for. 3 days down, 3 more to go. One day at land and then home! Print this post