A slow rolling morning here aboard the Journey.  The seas are moving, not badly, but enough to make you hold onto to the railings.  It isn’t enough to stop us from hitting the gym though, then a quick breakfast in an all but empty Windows.  We know it’s a sea day, but still!  It is almost 8am and there are only 2 other folks on our side of the seating area.  Geez.

There isn’t much happening today besides 2 front-loaded lectures – both of which are quite interesting: 

• Dr. Aleksandrs talks about The Forces Beneath:  The East African Rift System.  A really interesting overview of continental drift, mantle rocks and plate tectonics.  And Pangaea of course. Totally interesting discussion on plate movement, how Eastern Africa will split off from the continent, how tsunamis form and are detected, earthquakes, volcano and lava eruption.  Really nice.
• Dr. Svetlana with Greek mythology in the skies – how the big and little dipper (Ursula Major and Minor) were formed (Zeus’ mistress is big dipper, his illegitimate child the little dipper; always visible because Zeus’ wife asked Poseidon to keep the constellations always above the horizon, so they could never rest or be soothed by bathing in the ocean, thus they rotate around the North Star). She also explained Orion and Pegasus and the 7 sisters myths as well as Nordic and African myths surrounding some of the constellations. As well as explaining the significance of the dates associated with each zodiac sign:  those are the dates that they are visible in the sky. Learn something new every day.

From there we hit Brunch – excellent spread.  We don’t normally go this late (it was almost noon) and were a little worried about what would be left, but it didn’t disappoint.  Seating was at a premium, but other than that, everything was plentiful.  We had excellent Croque Monsieur, shrimp, cheese crackers, the whole spread.  Ed even had his Eggs Benedict.

The rest of the afternoon was spent reading, blogging, hitting the gym, before dinner drinks on the balcony, Harmony Hive in the Living Room, Rafael and Monique later for drinks in the Living Room, then nightcaps in the cabin.  Ready for Tanzania in the morning!