This morning Barbara gave her talk on the next two ports. Sri Lanka was devastated by civil war and then by a Tsunami, and is slowly rebuilding its infrastructure with a lot of help from China. The big draw for cruise ships are its national wildlife parks. Short of taking a tour, there is not going to be much to do in Hambantota. I probably will be staying on the ship.
This afternoon is another laundry day. Not a single machine is in use, but one of the dryers has an out of service tag on it. There is a bag of laundry hanging on the wall that was there last week. Someone is going home without some of their clothes, or maybe already did.
After laundry I spend several hours going thru pictures to select a few to post on the blog after I am home. My intention at this point is to add a couple of pictures to the blogs for each port day. Like many plans, they may change before they are executed.
The A/C is still not working in half of the Lido. Last night there also was no A/C in the Crow's Nest. Staff hinted that the cause was a lack of electrical capacity to run it, not a malfunction. I tend to accept this as we are running at 17 Knots, about the fastest the captain has run this ship in the last 70 days. All the engines are not running, and the captain indicated a reluctance in the past to start up an additional engine because of the additional fuel cost. I'll never know for sure, but it certainly is uncomfortable when there is no A/C, the temperatures are above 80, and the humidity very high.
Tonight is a gala, or formal, night. I think I will dress appropriately, but still go to the Lido to dine. I am there often enough that the cooks and servers all know me better than any of the dining room staff ever did. Well almost all. We had several short order cooks in the Lido join the ship in Singapore. I'm sure they had cooked eggs and made waffles before, but they sure hadn't done it very often. The other staff had to show them how to crack eggs quickly and teach them to make waffles. They will be proficient in a few more days.
The entertainment tonight was a quartet of strings called "Graffiti Classics". Most of the entertainers work for HAL on a pretty consistent basis, and perform on the World Cruise year after year. It has been several years since this group has been here. I can see why, but I am only one customer.
Tonight we set our clocks back again. Not an hour, just 30 minutes. Tomorrow is another sea day, and the forecast is for a high of only 79. Almost a freeze warning!