Day 6-Dubai to Venice-Suez Canal Cruise-At Sea

We have passed the Pirate Challenge and now cruising along on the Red Sea, putting the Gulf of Aden behind with its Somalian Pirates' worries.  

This map illustrates the area we are traveling. (Thank you, Internet, my old friend.) It shows where we started, Dubai, our stop in Salalah, Oman, then the Gulf of Aden where we were on alert for pirates. There is the Red Sea where we are now cruising. Danger spots heard about in the news are everywhere. Geography is not my strongpoint so I had no picture in my head of this cruise path. The pre-planning materials had no detailed map like this one.

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Lecture with Steven Ian Dutch, Southern Skies. He is a professor at the Univ of Wisconsin at Green Bay, a geologist. Picked up very little from this astronomy lecture. We did learn we were passing through narrow strait with Yemen on right. I need to study a map when I get home. Perhaps I should have before I left home.

As we round the Arabian Peninsula, we are farther south than Hawaii or Jamaica. The Southern Cross is well placed for evening viewing this time of year. This and other sky sights are not visible in Europe or U.S.

The green flash was explained. Physically real but quick flash of green on horizon as sun sets. We won't experience this on present cruise, but we did on our last cruises and remember seeing it.

  

Directions of sky. East and west reversed.    

      N.    S.   E.  W.                                                                                                                          

This is on a sky map.

Proper star names are Arabic.

Catalog labels also used Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc.

Constellation names are Latin.

Very few cultures map the whole sky.

There are 89 Constellations. Boundaries not fixed.

Latin has cases changes endings e.g.,  Alpha Centauri.

High northern sky can't see Big Dipper. We can see the Southern Cross.

Stars have stories. Huge, bright ones die early. 

The Andromeda Myth

We can thank Henrietta Levin.

Cassiopeia 

Cetus.

Andromeda will be sacrificed. 

Perseus (whale) saved the day. 

Hard to even take notes-that usually keeps me awake. Hate to say BORING BUT MUST. Left off here with bits and pieces of information. Maybe thinking of the nighttime skies and stars makes me sleepy. Professor Dutch does ramble, drift...lots of information but sometimes disjointed.

Enough of lectures today. 

Cocktail Clinic #2: THE MARGARITA 

Sue and I went to our second cocktail workshop, the Margarita. We had three different types including a Classic, a pineapple orange frozen one, and a blue one on the rocks. They gave us a champagne while waiting. Let me not forget the shots of Patron Tequila, too. That was a lot of alcohol and sent us laughing on our way with our margarita recipes  Never felt any ill effects after these clinics. Good Liquor?

Francisco could pour in all glasses from his stacked shakers. Olay!

              Yes, we had shots of Patron Tequila. 

    

    This is where the blue came from on our last one.

Sue invited one of the ladies, Vivian, and her husband to join us for our happy hour on the Hurley balcony. They did not show. We laughed about this adding them to our list of befriending failures. (Vivian and husband Rudy were people we saw and talked to a lot during the rest of the cruise. They didn't make the list!)

Theater show tonight featured Gary Williams singing the hits of Andy Williams, Frank Sinatra, and more.

After the show we went up on an upper deck to look for stars, the Southern Cross mentioned in our class. No luck.  Gave up and treated ourselves to some cookies at the Park Cafe. Then to bed.