TUESDAY, MAR 23RD--AT SEA

We lost an hour last night so slept in a little this morning. I was down in “Club.com”, the internet room, by 8:45am to talk with Christian, internet expert onboard to help passengers. I was hoping he could help me streamline the way I upload by photos on the blog as it is taking way too long. He suggested that my blog albums be a lot smaller. I have about 1000 photos in each of the two current albums, and as I am sure you will agree, it takes too long to open them. So from now on I will be making albums with just a few ports in each one. I finally finished uploading the rest of my Bangkok pictures this morning and removed as many “double” pictures as I could see but am sure I missed some. At 2pm I went down to enter the darts tournament but did not do well. It was a fun group playing and that is all that matters to me. I did not enter the Baggo game at 3pm as we were about to pass by Singapore. It was on starboard side so could watch it from our balcony. It is a high overcast day, with excellent visibility, and comfortable temperature. Capt Dag said we would be 3 miles from it as we sailed past and had a great view. We have sailed past miles and miles of cargo and tanker ships anchored in the waters around Singapore. Most of them are empty and waiting for loads which is a sign of the weak economy of the world. Singapore is one of the largest and busiest ports in the world. Capt Dag just gave a PA saying we were passing “Raffles lighthouse” a prominent landmark here and remarked that he has never seen the visibility as good as today. This evening and night we will be sailing through the narrow Malacca Strait between Indonesia and the Malaysian peninsula. Tomorrow morning at 8am we are scheduled to dock at the port for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The next day we will be in Penang, Malaysia. The experienced world cruisers and even Capt Dag say these ports are not very interesting. We do not have a tour scheduled yet for tomorrow. Maybe I will hire a local guy at the pier to take us on a private tour. There are always cars for hire at every port. Several of the ship’s tours include stops at mosques and temples. I have seen enough of them to last me for a long time, but they are beautiful. Rebecca has returned from her workout in gym and I better head that way. We requested the chef make us veal parmesan again tonight as the regular menu did not grab us. Definitely want to see the show tonight as Stephanie Baldwin will be singing. She is the wife of our ship’s general manager, Michael. Back from workout and now internet is down so not sure if I can post this today. We are sailing in the Strait now and the water is smooth as a swimming pool. The weather is finally cooperating with the cruise. We are only about 80 miles north of the equator now and it is only 82F.