Life Aboard the MSC Magnifica - Chapter Two: Atlantic Crossing
We’ve survived our first five consecutive days at sea! It was actually quite a nice change of pace from all the running around and sight seeing we’ve done for the past two weeks. I haven’t posted much since we’ve been on the go and have had spotty internet. Another surprise we’ve had on the ship is that we’re allotted only a certain amount of gigabytes to use on the internet package we’ve paid for. So if you’r wondering why we haven’t been more communicative it’s because we’re rationing our internet. We’ve really taken our endless streaming and scrolling on the mainland for granted! We’ll see how long 60 GB lasts.
Captian Massa and his crew navigated us 2654 nautical miles from Madiera, Portugal - an island off the coast of Morocco - to Phillipsburg, Sint Maarten. It took five solid days at sea, and I think we finally have our sea legs about us. The weather has been fantastic so far, and thankfully the sea was quite calm for our crossing. We’ve found it very peaceful to sit on the back of the ship, listen to the water, and stare at our wake as our trail disappears behind us. The deep blue water is so beautiful and it has been very relaxing to watch the giant swells roll off towards the horizon.
We’ve fared pretty well on the seasickness front, only a bit of dizziness. Our first few days crossing the Atlantic brought much larger swells than in the Mediterranean, and they had everyone walking around like drunken sailors, good luck walking a straight line around here. I don’t know how these waiters can carry a tray full of dishes without dropping them. I can’t even carry a cup of coffee without spilling on myself.
Sunset over the Atlantic
We had our first animal sighting other than pigeons: off the coast of Mallorca there was a pod of dolphins putting on a show. They jumped and splashed around next to the ship for about 20 minutes. We also watched hundreds of flying fish leap into the air and soar over the water. Those little suckers can really move, they can glide about 100 meters above the water. We were sailing through schools of them for hours. We’re excited to hopefully see some whales once we cross into the Pacific.
There are many different entertainers on board, and there are lots of shows and live music. We went to a Beatles cover band last night in the theater. It was a fun show complete with strobe lights, dancing groupies, and an old lady hurrying up to the front of the stage twirling her red lace bra above her head. It was one of those moments when you think, “where am I, and what is happening?” We’re still debating whether this act was pre-meditated and she brought an extra bra to the show for this purpose, or if she was so moved by their performance that she took her bra off in the theater to show her appreciation for these fake Liverpudlians. Either way it was the best part of the show.
They’ve been doing information sessions on our upcoming locations. We tried to attend one about Funchal, but since we’ve been changing time zones each day, our watches were an hour early and we ended up sitting in on the Italian version. Turns out mi Italiano no es bene. We were still able to take away that the town was named after the fennel plant and that Cristiano Ronaldo, the famous soccer player, is from the island of Madeira.
There are plenty of classes and discussions to keep us busy on board during our days at sea like “Gentle Gym,” “Mask Making,” “Grandma’s Corner Unsupervised” - honestly the whole ship could be called Grandma’s Corner Unsupervised, “Calligraphy Talk” - do they do calligraphy or just talk about it?? I was literally just ousted from my writing nook to make room for “Quilting Corner with Carol” Maybe tomorrow I’ll try my hand at Watercoloring and Beginner Italian. But we’re late for World Trivia, so bye for now!
sunrise over the Atlantic