At Sea – 25 April 2010

At Sea – 25 April 2010

We are still at sea and the ship is still rocking and rolling, which means that I am not feeling too well. I did go down to breakfast and ate something and then went to the lounge for the morning series of lectures. Ed spoke about Surinam, which was Dutch Guyana. It voted for independence in 1975 by one vote. The Surinamese pride themselves on their religious tolerance. The synagogue shares a wall with a mosque. There are Hindu temples, catholic and protestant churches. Apparently in the Treaty of Breda in 1667, the Dutch traded New Amsterdam for Dutch Guyana.

One of the chefs did a demonstration of eatable art. I arrived late and didn’t see him do the first two pieces, but I saw him do the bird of paradise and the watermelon flower.

Eatable Art - Bird of Paradice and some other animal
Artist at work on Watermellon
Water mellon flower

The next lecture was by Susan Adie, one of the naturalists, on “Unique Adaptations of Aquatic Mammals”. I joined the exercise class at 4:00 PM, which was difficult in that the ship was still rocking and rolling. After a cup of green tea, I attended the lecture on Rivers in literature given by Buzz Thompson.

After changing for dinner, I attended the briefing about tomorrow in Paramaribo. The two issues were that woman should not wear shorts and that everyone should not wear a sleeveless shirt, since the tour of Paramaribo includes visiting a mosque and that there is a 60% chance of rain. Dinner was served and after dinner I headed to my cabin to do my wash and go to sleep.