I attended Cpt. Tom's maritime lecture where he discussed the history of the Canary Islands and some maritime myths and legends. The Canary Islands were not named as such due to the canaries that do live there. On the contrary, the birds were named after the islands. The name of the island group came from the Latin name Canariae Insulae, meaning "Islands of the Dogs" due to the dog packs that roamed the main Grand Canary Island. The name has since been extended to encompass all seven islands in the chain. The Canary Mastiff, is a rare large Molosser-type dog breed which has since been domesticated. How they got to the island is the source of much speculation. Even the source of the human natives are not known. In general, the are fair skinned and blue eyed. Many believe they are descendants of the North African Berbers.
Cpt. Tom made a comment that there might be an itinerary change in our cruise. He said tomorrow, our last full sea day, was to be his last lecture. However, he was informed that he might stay on longer due to some changes. He did not know what was changing.
After lunch, I had to make the tough choice between attending another silly lecture by Edward Marks or going on a tour of the ship's bridge. It took milliseconds for me to decide.
The second officer gave us the tour. He was from Croatia. There are always a minimum of three crew persons on the bridge at any time, the pilot, the office-of-the-deck and the lookout. During other periods, there may be as many as ten crew members on the bridge. Today, the pilot was from Germany, the lookout was from the Philippines and the office-of-the-deck was from England.
Not my first tour of a cruise ship bridge. It is more like the control rooms I have encountered in refineries. Wheels have been replaced by track balls and computer screens. This is an eight year old ship. The second officer said the newer ships coming out are much more sophisticated. The Seabourn Ovation, which we will be on during our Baltic cruise in July, was launched in 2018. One addition is sonar, which our ship does not have.
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| Various signal flags |
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| View port in the floor of the wing |
After the tour of the bridge, I went down to find Alexander. He was with the shore excursion staff and had phoned a couple of days ago and left a message with Sarah. He wanted to talk about our transfer in Lisbon. We are taking the overview tour of Lisbon the morning we dock including a transfer to the airport. I knew this discussion was coming. I found him and the bottom line is that, while we have a transfer included, they would only take us to the airport, not to the hotel we will stay the night before Sarah heads home. We would have to take a cab to our hotel. That is what I anticipated. When Terri and I did a similar thing on our crossing which ended in Barcelona back in 2016, when the shore excusion was over, they literally dropped us at a taxis stand and we caught a cab to the hotel.
Based on Cpt. Tom's comment this morning, I asked Alexander if there was an itinerary change. He said the only one he was aware of was in Tangier. The shore excursion we are on was supposed to include the Kasbah Market and Museum. However, the museum will be closed that day, as it is every Wednesday. While I cannot believe that was a surprise to them, Alexander said they were working on an alternative and would let us know what that would be. That will be a week from tomorrow, so this could not be what Cpt. Tom was alluding to this morning.
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