At Sea: As I wrote last night, the Explora II is simply crawling to Gibraltar. It is just over a 200 mile passage and our ship is now going 6mph. It seems we are only floating, even the porpoise are swimming faster than our vessel. No trouble for me - I am a needlepointer. I think The Birthday Boy gets a bit bored. He isn't an idler, but is on his second bestseller, and has a book of crossword puzzles to keep him occupied. The ship Starlink wifi was out this morning. Not sure if our wifi woe was due to the major power outage in Spain and Portugal. All back to normal now.
Anyway, bored or not, there is always something to eat on this ship. On at-sea days, the food court chefs prepare dishes from a certain region or country. Today it was Spain, and since we only had coffee in our cabin this morning decided to sample our way through Espana. The usual sushi bar, pizza, salads, and burger bars were still available, but the appetizers, entrees, and desserts were Spanish - they even had paella! A few photos from lunch:
The entrees today were roasted suckling pig, paella, (potato) tortilla, patatas bravas, and braised endive. The tortilla cake was ice cold and the bravas were terrible. This was the first time the food disappointed me on the ship. I was forced to eat two desserts instead. Ah, the humanity!
(DT loves this!) Today was a Spanish Zarzuela.
Small (4 bite) portions of Basque Cheesecake (left), and espresso cheesecake (right). They also offered cookies, Tres Leches cake and platters of fresh fruits and fruit parfaits. It. Never. Ends.
We sat by the pool this afternoon, napping, reading and stitching. After all the dust and debris from docking in a working port (lots of grain was transferred from a ship next to us and the hulls (of whatever it was) were flying everywhere. Our deck was covered in white stuff. The roof was closed over the pool all day and it became like a sauna late in the afternoon. I asked the pool staff if they were going to open the retractable roof and they said NO! NO! NO! It took them 18 hours to clean the pool after docking in Casablanca.
Tonight we had reservations to try Marble & Co., the steak house on the Explora II. It was our first time to dine at this restaurant. The decor is very much "this is a steakhouse" and the servers are wearing Levi jeans. Caesar salad is made table-side:
Marble & Co. also offer small side dishes - and by small, I actually mean small. Not more than 1/2 cup. I chose chard in a cheesy sauce (above) and it was just yummy. Dave had a ribeye, but he could not finish it - I ate almost all of my meal. No dessert, but when we returned to our room after dinner, it was still light outside, it was nice and warm on the Atlantic and it looked like we were going to be treated to gorgeous sunset. Time to open the bottle of Mercier champagne that has been in our fridge since we embarked over two weeks ago in Barcelona!
And guess what? I finished one side of the sunglass case today! This took months, as it only gets stitched when I am traveling. Purse Project. (Must admit to never ever seeing a pink cheetah.)
Tomorrow: Gibraltar
Until my next update, I remain, your stitching correspondent.
LINKS:
Explora II
Current Ship Location