Over the Bar and out to Sea

We left the Amazon River during the night and are currently 4 degrees 41.1' N of the Equator headed toward Barbados with a heading of 311.3 degrees which is a little west of north (North would be 0 degrees [or would it be 360 degrees?]. The outside temperature has been very pleasant with comfortable humidity which has allowed Ruth to sit in a deck chair outside all afternoon. The only complaint I have heard from her is she can't get any reading done because she keeps falling asleep.

Today and tomorow are both sea days, so they try to come up with ideas to replace shore excursions. They have a very nice culinary center in an auditorium with ovens, refrigerator, multiple induction cook tops, all the cooking utensils you can think of and a large granite island with video cameras at every angle plus overhead to show everything that is going on. Today they had two of their senior chefs prepare anything they could think of with the ingredients provided beforehand, but of which they had no knowledge. It was fun and informative at the sametime. They chatted as they prepared their separate dishes and explained what they were doing. One made a grated potato pan-size pancake on which he placed sauted vegetables with garnishments. The other formed balls of a mixture of eggs, toasted bread cubes, and spices which he boiled in water for about 12 minutes and plated them, surrounded with slices of sauted veal simmered in a sauce made of whipping cream, broth, a little flour and a large amount of Hungarian sweet paprika. There was too large an audience to allow tasting.

They have scheduled a tour of the kitchens for tomorrow and at sometime plan to have officers from the Engineering staff assembled to explain their responsibilities and answere questions from the audience. Previously they had the same type forum with navigation officers which was informative as well.

The navigation bridge is equipped with the latest state-of-the-art Navigational Command System (NACOS). The functions include position fixing, route planning, radar navigation, collisions avoidance, automatic track control, measurement of water depth, the monitoring of speed and fuel consumption, and the storage of navigation data. The system collects information from satellites, radars, the gyroscopic compass, speed log, surface navigational system, engines, thrusters and rudders, in addition to displaying relevant computations and information on one screen controlled by a single keyboard. With this system, the Navigator has the facility to program the course the ship will sail, including complicated course changes through narrow channels or around obstacles. It works even when the bridge has zero visibility. The radars give the Navigator a view of the surface of the sea with a maximum radius of 72 nautical miles.

I copied all of the above paragraph from the daily program guide from this morning. I compiled a photo file of just birds, which I will try to upload to Picasa this evening or tomorrow morning. If anyone knows what some of the birds are, let me know.

Love to all.