Monday, January 9th, 2023 At Sea Queen Mary 2
Updated: Jun 19, 2023
The sea is a little calmer today and so we are not being rattled around as much as yesterday. All the way across the Atlantic the captain has being trying to keep the ship between two storm systems, however the system behind us is catching up and will in fact overhaul us tonight so thing may once again turn rough (or worse!). I was up early today to make sure we could get our mandatory covid tests done and submitted during the required 8AM to 9AM window. In preparing for the testing I discovered that they had only delivered 1 test kit, so I had to track down the cabin steward who duly toddled off to find an additional kit. Half an hour later I finally had 2 kits and could start the testing; we both tested negative. So off I went again, 2 test kits in hand, to track down the cabin steward and show him our good news. I found the steward hoovering in a cabin down the corridor and, without interrupting his hoovering motion, he politely nodded when showed the covid results. I just hope our negative results get communicated to the appropriate department on the ship before we transfer to the Queen Victoria on Wednesday. As a backup I took pictures of our negative showing tests. Today I attended an excellent Insights Lecture given by the captain of Queen Mary 2, Aseem Hashemi – it was titled a “Virtual Tour of the Bridge”. Captain Hashemi was a very humorous and practiced speaker who started his career as an airline pilot before embarking on his nautical career. The lecture covered the details of each section of the Bridge but also the various other operational aspects of the ship. The captain was also able to weave in aircraft operational and navigational comparisons to show how the two modes of transport have a lot in common.
In the afternoon we visited the planetarium; yes, the Queen Mary 2 has an onboard planetarium – in fact it’s the largest at sea. A dome shaped screen lowers from the ceiling of the Illuminations Theater and this works in conjunction with four glass domed permanent projectors that are installed strategically around the room. The seats in the theater are designed to fully recline to give the audience a better view of the domed screen, it works extremely well. The show today was titled “The Dark Universe”, it was narrated by Neal Degrasse Tyson who tried his best to explain dark matter and dark energy and how they relate to the Big Bang. Despite the excellent graphics displayed on the domed screen we noticed many in the audience who were taking advantage of the reclined seats to fit in an afternoon nap.
I've noticed the ship has increased speed this evening and the captain has announced that he is trying to get the ship clear of a fairly large maritime exclusion zone that has been declared because of a Virgin rocket launch later tonight. If we had not increase speed, we would have been right under the point that the rocket was released from its 747 carrier plane. Due to the very low clouds in the area we are not expecting to see anything. Tonight was the final formal night for this leg of our voyage, and I finally cracked the bow tie tying! A special treat tonight; we had dinner at the Verandah Steak House - we've done this every time we've been onboard QM2 and always enjoyed it. There is an extra charge for the Verandah, but it's well worth it.
When we got back to the cabin it was evident that the wind had really picked up, in fact the wind speed was 50 knots across the deck! The previously annoying whistling wind noise emanating from our balcony door now became a deafening screech as much of the weather stripping around the door had degraded leaving significant gaps. It would have been impossible to sleep through the noise coming from the door, so I called for help. Pretty soon we had the "door fixing" technician in our cabin with his miles of replacement weather stripping. Unfortunately, fixing the door required repeated opening and banging the door closed and by now it was past 11PM - I don't think we are very popular with our neighbors this evening.
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