Two nights in a row of changing the clock back by one hour – yikes! – up at 4:15 am. Tonight we will change the clock back 30 minutes as Sri Lanka is a country with a weird time zone, like Darwin. Yes, you get more sleep – or do you?

A month from now we will be boarding the Queen Mary 2 in Southampton, headed for New York City. Time keeps moving forward ?!

Last night we attended a Virtuoso Tour group cocktail party. We met quite a few people who we have seen on tours and also a few new people. A couple from Orlando, another couple from Washington DC and some of the crew. One young officer, Jonathan, had been on our 2012 World Cruise. How did we learn that? His wife said his skill was reading the stars. We said great, we were looking to have someone do a presentation at night pointing out the southern constellations like they did on our last world cruise. He said what year? And coincidentally he was the officer that did that presentation and will be doing one again on this ship after our stop at Reunion Island. It is so interesting to see and learn the southern constellations.

We also had a nice conversation with the Ship’s Engineer about the 18,000-operating-hour overhaul they are presently doing on three of the Diesel engines and on the rather massive Materials and Stores inventory they must maintain, onboard, to keep the ship mechanically sound and ploughing through the seas. It’s fun to be around vital people, young and not, who have strong passion for their undertakings. It was also nice to see several of the ship officers accompanied by their spouses for this sector. Strong and beautiful people.

More lecturers today. I’m still enjoying the Archeological Forensic expert. She’ll be talking all about Neanderthals who walked the earth for 350,000 years – way longer than Homo Sapiens. Steve is trying to catch up on culling, curating and editing his “secret” (few if any appear in the blog) photographs. You’ll have to ask him for a private showing of his 5-Star photographs only. He says there may be two or three of those.

Yesterday, it was the Chief Officer of Hotel Operations, James’s birthday. They had a little surprise for him in the Lobby. We heard everyone singing and I was able to snap this photo. James in the front row. The Captain Tomas Connery with beard and balding in the middle and Jonathan mentioned above – not bald with beard!

Tomorrow, early morning we dock and will be visiting the city of Colombo, Sri Lanka. The last time we visited here we went to an elephant sanctuary, a 3 hour drive away from port. No elephants this time – City tour here we come. Until then, looking off our deck, the Indian Ocean.