Emergency Stop

3 November 2016

We are booking right along. He's doing 21 knots. We may make Norfolk nearly on time.

Nassau harbour

We turned into Nassau about 7.

Nassau under moonlight

The lighthouse at the entrance is not lit.

At night - unlit

Lighthouse at night with police boat (blue light)

There was a police boat (or at least I assume that the thing with the flashing blue light was a police boat) which was keeping pace with us. We went forward into the dock next to Carnival Pride which was docked there.

Bow of the Pride

Carnival Pride lighted up at night

Took about half an hour. A doctor came on board. Then an ambulance arrived.

Dock

Ambulance

About 8:00 the man's wife came out and he came out on a stretcher - he was on oxygen and had one of those portable heart monitors on the foot of the stretcher. People were saying that he looked young and that she looked young. I don't know about her, but I didn't think he looked that young.

Evacuated passenger

We left before 8:30 and the ship picked up speed - we had 705 nm to do to get to Norfolk

Towel animal

4 November 2016 - Happy Birthday Me

Theater entrance

We went to the deembarkation meeting this morning. Lynde did not think she needed to come - I had to insist.

Lynde at Disembarkation talk

Cruise director giving disembarkation talk

Funniest question

Parade of workers

They are saying we will be into Norfolk by noon- they are saying that we will be 5 hours late which is the time that it took to drop that guy off in Nassau. Personally I think we will be there earlier if he keeps this speed up. We had 478 nm to go at 11:30 and he was doing almost 21 knots.

I went to lunch at Ji.Ji.'s Asian Kitchen

Restaurant at lunch

which is free at lunch. (At dinner it is $12 each) I thought I could get some stir fry

Cook

But it wasn't really fried - it was more steamed.

Lunch

I went out to the regular buffet for dessert.

Buffet dessert

Lynde is livid because she will not be able to get to Brett and Christine's to do the cleaning for the governor's visit. But we can't get off the ship until it gets there, and we can't get off early unless we can carry our bags, and she can't carry hers - so it wouldn't work even if I could pull my bag myself.

The best I was able to do was to have them switch us to dis-embark group 1 which is for platinum and special guests. They did give me the #1 tags at the desk. Apparently we need to leave our rooms by 11:00 and go to a holding area (or I guess eat lunch). And then go to the Sunset dining room (right here on our deck) at 1:15 and wait for the call to get off - on deck 3 which is our deck.

The room steward left me a card for a free photo for my birthday, which of course isn't free - I had to pay $3.00 to get the photo. So I did get the one of us on Halloween. I took a photo of it and gave it to Lynde.

Lynde got sunburned yesterday and she's out on deck again today.

79th Birthday Selfie

At dinner last night they had table cloths on the table - it was formal night again.

Table for Formal night

Lynde had two appetizers.

Chesapeake Crab cake

Stuffed mushrooms

I had clam chowder and

Caesar salad

Didn't think much of the salad. Then I had

Filet mignon and short rib

and Lynde had

Grilled jumbo shrimp

.
We both had

Grand Mariner souffle

for dessert and she also had the reduced sugar Key Lime mousse (i..e. pudding). The souffle was good. After dinner Lynde was up on deck and there was a wedding up there. She said the bride's dress was beautiful.It is now 10 am and we are 19 nm from Norfolk. It was quite rough last night. When the ship runs into a wave it bangs violently which concerns me. There was a strong north wind last night 53 knots apparent and we were going north in the Gulf stream. So it was rough.

5 November 2016

We didn't wake up until 9:00, but we are now packed up. Lynde is smoking a cigarette.

They want us out of our rooms by 11:00 - I do not see the need for that because there are no pax getting on this ship - it is running empty from here to Charleston. I also do not completely understand the disembarkation instructions. There is a gap in the food service between 10 and 11:30 when there is no service. Also I have not gotten the bill or the evaluation form yet. (We got the bill before we got off but the evaluation is apparently via email.) We got to Norfolk a little before 12,

Backlit Coast Guard escort

Aircraft carriers

Hampton Roads

Coast Guard escort

Hospital ship

Ship Stern

but the people who were carrying off their luggage took from 1 to 3 to get off. They decided we could stay in our rooms until 12 but we didn't hear the announcement and we were told that there wouldn't be enough time to go to lunch, which wasn't correct - we could have gone. Timmy (Lynde's husband) was waiting for us since about 11:00 and he finally got to pick us up about 3:30.

No parking sign with traffic officer's jacket

Norfolk trolley

We stopped for gas and they got me a burger for dinner

Gas stop

Lynde drove part of the way and she's not the kind of driver I like to ride with - she speeds, tailgates, turns around to talk to you and has only one hand on the wheel - sometimes no hands. We got here to Leonardtown about 7:30.

So I'm home. Bob has done more of the siding, and planted the rest of the tulips

My next trip was in May 2017 A CAPITOL VISIT AND A WEDDING (Driving south for our Granddaughter's wedding)