October 23 Sea day #5

    Looking outside on Sea Day #5, the sky is covered in light grey clouds, the temperature is 19° C and it is still windy, but not as strong as yesterday. It may have rained overnight since there were droplets on the balcony door and the balcony floor was wet. The ship’s sunrise position was 41°26.65’ N and 41°16.32’ W, on course 288. The ocean swells were much lower about one meter and no white caps. Anthem has cruised 2,420 nautical miles. 

   The location of Titanic's bow is 41°43′57′′ N 49°56′49′′ W about 4,000 meters below the water surface. By noon Anthem’s location was 42°04.56’ N and 44°14.99’ W, we were already north of the Titanic’s north latitude, but we were still east of the location.

   Again overnight the ship’s clocks had been moved back one hour. There is still one more hour to go to sync with Halifax time.  We ate breakfast at the Solarium café. We took our jackets so that we could walk on Deck 15’s track in the 40 to 45 km wind.  As we approached the front, the curved track has three meter walls that act as a wind tunnel making it a challenge to walk into the wind. Claire’s raincoat skirt was caught by the wind and raised to waist height. We walked 8 ½ laps, about 4.5 kilometres, and then went down to Deck 4 to the Diamond Club to get macchiatos.   Total steps 7,468.

   Captain Iv’s noon announcement advised us that the waves were about one meter high and the wind was NE 40 km. It was sunny with a few clouds temperature 21° C. He mentioned that Anthem had sailed 848 nautical miles since Ponta Delgada and still needs to go 885 nautical miles to arrive in Halifax on Tuesday.

    We went to the Seaplex Dog House on Deck 15 by the Seaplex for lunch. The décor is to make you believe that it is a food truck. There was basketball being played when we passed the Seaplex, earlier there were pickleball games on four courts. There are daily bumper cars times at the Seaplex. There was also several games of table tennis being played on the mezzanine level. We ordered hotdogs,  Larry’s was a German sausage and Claire had a pork and apple sausage, both were on fresh Brioche buns. We then went down to Johnny Rocket’s on Deck 14 and ordered milkshakes, before returning to the stateroom to read today’s newspaper online.  

    There was a knock on the door and Larry was given a plate with five different small cake samples addressed “To our loyal guest”. We had the same thing on the Canary Islands cruise.  We have the Diamond loyalty tier on Royal Caribbean. It is due to having reached Elite status on Celebrity Cruises, a sister company.  We have only been on Royal Caribbean ships for 60 days and true Diamond requires 80 days of sailing.  Celebrity Elite level requires at least ten 12 night or longer cruises at Balcony or higher category, while Diamond level requires 80 days of cruising in any category.

   It was nice sitting on the balcony in the afternoon with relatively calm seas, sunny skies and a light breeze since the port side of the ship was sheltered from the wind.  Suggested dress code for this evening was Formal. Yesterday Jenny made a special request for Roasted Potato & Leek soup and we all asked for it as an appetizer tonight. The photographers had photo stations set up o Decks 4 and 5 and they wandered the dining rooms looking for people willing to have their photo taken while sitting at their tables.  The 8 p.m. Headliner show in the Royal Theatre was Beatles Celebration by a pretty good Beatles tribute band.


Total steps 14,285


ocean swells are much lower today


Claire’s raincoat skirt caught by the wind


Seaplex Dog House on Deck 15


five different small cake samples

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