Things to Do on a Boat

...two shadows on a windy day...

It is no surprise that I don’t know how to work the TV on a boat. I am in the Beginner Category with the channel changer at home, and I am a no show on the boat. There is too much to do here to figure out even where the on and off button is. Even when i wake up earlier than the normal person, and go to sleep later, there is still no electronic viewing time. In the mornings when I want to exercise, I want to see the ocean just a little bit more, so rather than using the treadmills in the gym, I walk the perimeter of deck 11, where the track tells me that 3 rounds equals walking one one, and 5 circles of the track equal 1 kilometer. I can tell by the rocking of the boat this morning that it is going to be windy up there – so windy that I have on a jacket and will wrap a scarf around my neck. This was not the gear of the Mediterranean, but the Bay of Biscay in the Atlantic is its own joy.

A windy deck entering Lisbon
...the hat gave serious whiplash to anyone who walked by too closely...

This first morning I quickly learned how to work the water fountain, my mouth close to the tap before I turn the water on – close enough that the water squirts right into my mouth before the wind hits it. Otherwise being near the water fountain is a chance I don’t want to take for the wind catches the stream of water, divides it into four quarters and shoots it into four different directions at the same time. As well, the wind up there reminds me of Lethbridge, Alberta – to walk into it is to use one’s body as a knife against its force, and when the wind is at my back, I can lay back into it at a 45 degree angle, at which point I am walking upright. This is the once instance where it is good to have eaten more on the cruise, rather than less – kind of like adding sandbags to the trunk of ones care in the wintertime for extra weight. Weight-wise, a little bit of a person would be blown right off of the deck.