From Asia to the Middle East

Day 22
Back to sea days full of rock n roll. Big "lazy" swell is causing more roll than rock thankfully.  By mid morning we are still heading in a more northerly direction, pretty well in line with Cochin (india) before we enter the Arabian Sea. The extra security staff are now patrolling the deck with their powerful binoculars and they have set up the LRAD sonic units as well.  So far all we have seen are local fishermen (fisherpersons) in their little 16-18 ft boats.  They appear to have 5 or 6 onboard and are net-fishing.   Not my idea of a good fishing day for sure.

Yes, another wine tasting today, so morning bridge and I have bagged a deckchair forward, where once again the odd wave is crashing over the bow. Where would we be without stabilizers?  Forgot to mention that we got yet another half an hour sleep in, so are now a full 7 hours behind NZ time, with one more hour before we reach Oman in 3 days.  Incidentally,  my cough did not develop into anything nasty and as suspected it was more about air quality,  but I am taking care, particularly with the air conditioning vs outside temperatures.  Update - it's now Vivian's turn although hers is more of a cold at this stage.

Went to the movies yet again (well exceeded my annual quota already!) "The death of Stalin".  What a nasty bunch they were back then.  We also did the 6.30 show with Irish comedian William Caulfield.  It was his second show and everyone was raving, but we were averagely unimpressed.  We did not go to the late evening show as Vivian's cold has really taken hold.

Day 23
After another bumpy night we woke to similar conditions as we head across the Arabian Sea.  No sign of any life out there, either human or nature.  We have just finished a light room service breakfast and Vivian has returned to bed.  We'll have to get out of here at some stage to get the room serviced.  Yes, formal again tonight, but we also have Cruise Critic lunch first.  Vivian persevered and even went to bridge!   No shows however tonight - just eat and sleep.

Day 24
A different day programmed as there is no breakfast in MDR, rather a midmorning brunch and later both the ukulele & choir concerts, so we are well out of our usual routine.  Clocks back another hour, so late breakfast is actually even later!  It was a pretty rough night with the swell rising a bit.  I liken it to living through the earthquakes - smooth rocking and suddenly a big shudder!  We need to take extra care, even walking around the stateroom.  We had a quick snack room service breakfast at 8.30 and are meeting Louise & George at 11.00 for brunch.

The Promenade Deck has been closed and the wave height increased to around 8 metres with some very violent shudders, but the Commodore has promised that it will abate overnight as we near the coast of Oman.  For a change our table (well 6 of us as the other two are gluten/dairy free) went to the Pizzeria for dinner.  It made a nice change and we had a great time chatting and were almost thrown out at closing time (joke).  Vivian is now 95% OK thankfully.

Day 25 - Oman
Yes, it was a lot smoother during the night and when we woke we could see the coast through the haze.  It was hot and steamy even at.6.00am. A pleasant sail-in with excellent views of the Palace etc (which seems to have been added to since our last visit).  We were also interested to note that the Royal Yacht was preparing to sail - perhaps His Highness, the Sultan couldn't stand to remain in town while almost 2,000 Aussies & Kiwis descended on his country.  A most impressive yacht, almost the size of a cruise ship and very pristine.  On that subject, the staff of our ship were busy overpainting all the rust stains from the lower deck portholes!

We had nothing planned for the day so went quite late to breakfast.  There is a free shuttle into town, but there were lots of us doing our own thing, so there was quite a queue waiting for the shuttle to return from town.  VERY hot standing in line for around 15 minutes waiting.  After getting on the shuttle we travelled all of 100 metres, disembarked and went through immigration scanning and back on the bus.  I recall doing that last time too.

It was even hotter in town - I reckon 40° by 10.30.  We quickly took refuge in the Souk and didn't get more than 20 metres when Vivian spied a kaftan dress, which of course got the store owner very excited.  Long & short is that we ended up buying one after some protracted negotiation,  including "first morning sale", "special for you" etc. USD 26.  Not a great bargain, but a good fair price.  We then spent the next 30-40 minutes wandering the maze of the shopping precinct.  We tried to get me a othe white cotton shirt, but to no avail - only long sleeved.

Even though we hadn't spent much time in the Souk or surrounding area, we felt that we'd done our dash.   We have been to Muscat twice before and covered the usual sights.  We called into our usual cafe/juice bar for a cold juice, but this proved a bit of a disaster.  They have quadrupled their size but did not have the staff or facilities to deal with the custom.  In hindsight we should have been like others and simply walked away after waiting 20 minutes, but we persevered in the heat.  We ended up with a wrong juice full of ice and  almost no juice but it had taken so long to get this far we just paid up and marked it down to experience.

Our next issue was to get the shuttle back to the ship.  This shouldn't have been an issue, but, almost every Princess tour had the Souk as part of the "free time for shopping", so there were dozens of coaches and hundreds of passengers blocking the road/footpath.  The shuttles could not get through.  Once again, another half an hour in the midday sun did not make us any more comfortable.  But thankfully 2 shuttles arrived in quick succession and we were back on board in no time .  Time enough for a "good" coffee before lunch.  Not that we ate much at all.

All back onboard by 4.30, which happens to be the time for another mandatory safety presentation.  Yes, I know that it is law to have this every 30 days but today is only day 25 for us from Auckland and tomorrow is the end of Sector 1, with some 300 passengers disembarking/ embarking.  I just would have thought it more practical to do this drill on day 2 Dubai.  But who am I?