Mar 15 - At Sea

DONNA KAY PHILLIPS : Today is a much needed break at Sea between the Tsunami beach break and High Dive platform of Acapulco to the promise of ATVing tomorrow in Puerto Vallarta. Ther are a few things on this ship that I have yet to indulge in, like I said, we run in tight circle on this large vessel.

I have yet to swim in the Mid-ship pool, pictured above. It's either too crowded, too cold or too warm - but mainly it all goes back to being trapped by the odd mix of music on all of these public decks. the mid-ship pool is where Entertainment Staff does their thing, getting folks going with the age-old cruise ship games. Back in the day, it used to be Horse Racing and Pummel Horse Pillow Fights. Today it's Hairy Back Contests and the Spoon on a String Game where the once the spoon is pulled from the last person in the line, usually a man, the spoon is bent at a 90º angle and the Cruise Director makes "the joke" about what in the man's pants could bent the spoon like this. The crowd seems to love it as I drift past to the less attended aft Pool area.

However, we've been at the aft pool for over a month now and it's too cold to do the monster slide again so today we all decided to take advantage of mini Golf Course on Deck 12 forward. My Dad, Pietro, Sandy and myself went around the Pirate-themed course twice, which was quite challenging on the highest deck windy deck of a moving ship. It was great fun and is a great use of space on this otherwise uninhabitable deck.

There are plenty of places to relax on this diverse vessel. That said, my favorite place to think and watch and be, is on any of the aft decks looking back at our wake. To avoid the most wind, the best place to go is all the way to the top and sit on the volleyball/basketball are bleachers cut from the back side of the smoke stack, it's a great place to get out of the fray of the aft deck pool.

Often times sea birds drift and swoop behind us right in rhythm to the Chillout Playlist on my iPod. The ship's stern slowly bobs up and down in the waves lulling my mind into a peaceful place. I have gotten to find my place on ship's for quite a while now, more than most, but I never seem to get enough of it. It's so freeing to sail around the planet yet it's also very restricting. There's definitely a nurturing feeling of containment on this floating city and while her crew gets to pop on and off in different ports for an 8 hr experience from time to time, they also do not have the easiest access to music, or the latest news or entertainment.

Imagine a life filled with tight work schedules with little time for recreation or rest. There simply isn't a ton of time to surf the net and keep up on the latest YouTube video, or the latest political speech, or even the latest in new and independent music. It mostly doesn't matter in this world. We have friends here who are facinated with our line of work in internet radio, but they have no time to surf the site or listen to the radio stations, let alone download new music on a slow internet connection. It's wonderfully free and lonely all at the same time. I feel both envious of the lifestyle and the constant motion and sad that there is such little time to connect with the outside world, something familiar in the busy lives we led back home before we left for South America. I am thinking now, that work should be a means to spend MORE time with people, forging relationships and experiencing true connection, as opposed to a means that keeps us disconnected from each other. I think it's time to shift this paradigm by creating businesses that allow us to travel and connect with our fellow humans on the planet. Traveling is no longer reserved for the older retired generations, like the young crew of this ship, we will find ways to get out there and meet the world as we did on this trip.
-dkp