December 30, 2021 – At Sea (unplanned) – Partly Cloudy – 81F

An unplanned day at sea.  We have no port to go to today so Quest will be in a holding pattern off the coast of St Lucia.  We are going to have a scenic tour of this Caribbean Island with emphasis, of course, on Castries and Le Pitons.

Saw the sunrise from the Cabin and you can tell from the waves that we are traveling very fast.

The day was pretty routine – slept better (fewer engines, less vibration), had breakfast (pancakes and eggs today) up in Windows Café and got ready for my extra lecture.

I had pretty good attendance at my 10 AM talk, “DNA Testing: Cold Cases Solved”.  I estimated about 25 people in the audience.  The talk ran 35 minutes – I had edited out some slides because Super Bingo was on after me and I never want that to start late.

Pretty standard lunch of tuna salad and salad in Windows Café. I ran into the guy from UCLA that we chatted with on the beach in St. Maarten and got a nice picture.

I did try something different today - I found out that the Cafe could put together a plate of Nachos and Cheese so I gave that a try - it was OK but not an item I would get on a regular basis.  I did send a picture of this dish to Noah because he is a big fan of nachos.

I am getting close to finishing “Without Fail” – we spent the whole day on the open deck – this has become a health priority now that COVID is on the ship.  The ship, at one time, was not moving, 

and then took a course parallel to the St Lucia shoreline heading away from Les Pitons.  Quest then turned around (see below) and headed toward Les Pitons. The ship passed by Castries (there was another cruise ship docked) and then came as close to Les Pitons as we have ever been.  It made for great pictures but overall, it got to be a bit tiresome.

After our closeup look at these volcanic "plugs" (pitons in English) the ship moved away from St Lucia and headed to our next port.  I did get the super panoramic picture that summed up the day's journey.

We have been looking forward to “British” night in the Windows Café since we inadvertently missed it on the last cruise.  We got nice seats out on the veranda and ordered fish and chips.  I guess you have to manage expectations – the fish was undercooked, but the batter was very good.  The fries were good.  I am assuming that the fish is deep fried fresh – it just didn’t turn out that good.  I didn’t really care for the bread pudding dessert.  Expectations.

It was nice, however, to sit out on the back deck - fresh air, distanced, and I even got another nice post sunset shot.

After dinner, we went to see magician Jason Bird in the Cabaret Lounge.  

Because of flight disruptions, he had been traveling for days to meet the ship.  He seemed a bit tired and disorganized, and his magic was not that impressive. He said he was going to do another show in a few days.  We’ll see how he does with a little rest.

It was back to the room for the night.  Our room continues to be cold when we get back from the show.  Then the room slowly warms up overnight and is comfortable in the morning.  Not sure what is going on.