"" Writer's Wanderings: Testing For The Next Segment Of Our Cruise

Monday, January 17, 2022

Testing For The Next Segment Of Our Cruise


 A sunny start to our day with breakfast in the Marketplace buffet. Can you still call it a buffet when there is no self-serve anymore? No matter, it all goes very efficiently and with reduced guest capacity, your coffee cup is always full.

It was Sunday so we returned to our room after a few laps around the Promenade to live stream a church service from Key Largo. The live stream worked fairly well considering we were out at sea. 

Then it was time to take The Test. Again it was an antigen test, nose swab but the test swab was handled a bit differently in a test tube. All the same, the best news came as we stood in line waiting. There was an officer there who answered Bob's question about what happens should we test positive. We were under the assumption (something that happens when you listen to rumors) that if the test was positive, we would have to leave the ship. Not the case according to her. As long as we were not sick, exhibiting symptoms, a positive result would mean we would quarantine in our room for ten days but we didn't need to leave the ship. We exhaled. That was more hopeful than having to cancel the rest of our 116 day Grand Voyage.

The day before, we had attended what was called an open discussion about COVID led by a fellow passenger, a microbiologist Dr. Ronald Atlas. He explained some of the issues with viruses and COVID in particular and the difference between RNA and DNA and how the vaccines use the RNA to fight the virus. One of the things I found most interesting though was the major way viruses are often transmitted--through the eyes. Bottom line: wash your hands thoroughly and often and don't touch your eyes. Another encouraging fact was that the positivity rate on cruise ships is less that 1% compared to the numbers that are climbing on land. All in all, COVID is probably here to stay for quite a while and he was hopeful that what will happen is that we will get a combined yearly shot that will help to keep us from the flu as well as the COVID.

Lunchtime came and we had not heard any news about our morning test. In this case, no news was great news. They would not tell us the result unless it was positive. 

An interesting talk about pirates followed lunch. I learned a few new terms: eggs were called cackle fruit, the term duffle bag comes from the pirates calling their stuff "duffle" and taking a caulk meant taking a nap. That last one needs a bit of explaining. They would use tar to seal the cracks in the deck flooring and so if you took a nap laying on the deck, the soft tar would leave tar marks from the caulk on your back.


On Deck 12 in the Palm Court before dinner, we settled in to listen to music and watched the sky light up ahead of us with lightening flashes. On our weather radar we could see that there was a line of storms that we were going to pass through on our way to Miami. It was quite a display for a while but sometime in the middle of dinner, it was over.

Our evening entertainment was the lead female singer's single woman show featuring her favorite lead ladies from musicals and films. She did some great impersonations. That was followed by a stop in the Stardust Lounge to see that the Steelers were getting soundly beaten by the Chiefs. 

Tomorrow morning would be lost to the immigration proceedings and disembarking previous passengers and embarking new ones. But like Scarlet, I'd worry about that tomorrow. The good news was that reception told me the salon would be open for the next segment and Bob could stop grumping about needing a haircut.

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