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Friday, November 16th -- A Day at Sea with a Major Storm...

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Oh, my, it was moving!!  I used to own a large power boat and have had it in 15 foot seas. Then, I experienced 30-35 degree pitching (forward-backwards motion) and rolling (side to side). I’ve been seasick on smaller boats and this did not bother me. Still, over half the people on the boat were seasick.

Lisa slept in (our cabin was near midship and didn’t experience too much pitching) and I went to exercise at around 10AM. The gym on the boat is near the bow with a lovely view forward. I estimated we were pitching 15-20 degrees which astonished me for a 140,000 ton boat. I was marking the horizon and counting and we seemed to have a 15 second or so cycle on the motion.

So, I’m working on the elliptical and thinking about a number of nerdy things. The boat’s length is approximately 1000 feet and the elliptical machine was about 100 from the front. That means I was standing about 400 away from the center of gravity of the ship. This means a circle including me would be about 800 feet in diameter and have about a 2400 foot circumference. If the boat was pitching at least 15 degrees, I was moving a 24th of that circle or 100 feet each way back and forth every 15 seconds! That seemed cool to me! It was hard to work the elliptical as fast as normal when the relative gravity of the descent made my feet fly up into the air if I wasn’t careful… I got a great 30 minute workout but it was a bit unusual.

Lisa, D’Arcy, Roger, and I joined for lunch at the Johnny Rockets on board the ship and that was a lot of fun (we ate too much, though). The motion was really beginning to pick up as we got to noon. After lunch, we started to look around the ship together but Lisa had an appointment for a facial and to get her nails done. Unfortunately, the spa is on the forward part of the ship (one deck above the gym) and the motion was BAD for her! She barely completed these and then was down in the stateroom laying down and miserable.

Meanwhile, Roger and I went exploring… the crew had tied up all the deck furniture and closed off most of the outside areas. The winds were 60-65MPH and we were heading into the wind at 20 knots so this made a relative wind of 80-85MP. The waves were about 20 feet… The boat was MOVING!!!

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I had always known that large ships (and even small boats) flex and twist in the weather.   It was interesting to walk down the long halls containing the staterooms and look down watching the boat bend...  Wow!

Lisa ended up skipping dinner and I ate with D’Arcy and Roger and brought her some food. The three of us had a fine time visiting but it is not that much fun having fun when you know your wife is feeling sick.

We had to pack that night and leave all our bags in the hallway before going to bed as we had an early departure. Of course, we brought WAY too much stuff with us and packing was a project!

The next morning was an EARLY departure to avoid the crowds and make our airplane flight to Rome.

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