At Sea - Feb 03-05, 2013

Settling into sea life during our crossing to India was nice and calm, giving us a great chance to rid of the jet lag. This is our first time in these waters where we exited out of the Persian Gulf and into the Iranian Sea and with this entry into the Iranian Sea we were presented with a curtain black out notice in our stateroom, apparently we are Pirate waters. We have no fewer than 12 fire hoses mounted around the Promenade Deck with 2 security guards stationed 24 hours a day on either side of the ship. We are required to have our heavy curtains closed from dawn to dusk and all outside ship lights are also out during this time so to not look like a Cruise Ship. Over kill, yah I would say but I guess we on erring on the side of caution as I pointed out we have never been in these waters, so perhaps we have to run on the edge of caution. This really has not effected us it just looks a bit strange, we will remain at this heightened caution level until we leave the west coast of India. Our ship life is a bit different than we are used to as this ship calls Rotterdam its home port. There are many Dutch guests on board in fact so many that all announcements are in both English and Dutch also many of the seminars offered are in presented in English and then later in Dutch. I believe the count is approximately 400 Dutch, 200 Canadian, 400 Americans with the balance of about 300 other. So we are learning some Dutch during this adventure. Now that we are closed to land our internet is improving so we are almost caught up with this blog. Today was Mormugao (Goa) and this upload will be posted shortly and then we should be good for an update from each port shortly after our visit.