The clocks were moved forward one hour last night. We wake up at 7 am and see the beautiful sunrise with Haiti’s Mountains in the distance. Seas start off calm as we sail towards Aruba.

As the day progresses, the winds pick-up and the seas become 4-5 meters with winds of 55 knots. Yikes, the Caribbean Sea has turned in to the Atlantic Ocean! Rough and wild day traveling south east towards our next port.

The Captain of the ship is Andrew Hall. The Captain makes an announcement every day at Noon telling us how far we have traveled and how far we have to the next port. He also warns us today that the seas are going to get worse as the day progresses. And truly they do!

We attend a “Celebrity” speaker lecture – Jane Corbin BBC Panorama TV Show. She’s been covering Osama Bin Ladin and now ISIS for the past 20 years. Very interesting lecture with video clips from her shows beginning in 2001 up until just a year ago. She will be providing other lectures later this cruise segment.

Our dinner seating is at 6 PM. Tonight we have a strange announcement from the ship’s medical team – “Anyone with Type O positive or negative please come to the Medical Center, a traveler is quite ill and needs blood.” Several people get up from their tables and head out. Later in the evening, we are told a Helicopter will be landing on our ship when we are in range to pick-up the passenger. Not good news but it does happen.

Every night we’ve had a surprise gift in our room – tonight’s were leather bound diaries with World Cruise 2019 engraved. Nice.

Also, attended the Captain’s Welcome Cocktail Party with everyone in their finest wear. Seas are rough! We receive the stats for the cruise – 897 United Kingdom, 296 USA, 226 Germany, 78 Australians, 72 Canadians, 39 Swedes and the rest are from 26 different countries. The shop holds around 2000 with the staff an additional 900 or so from 49 different countries.