October 26 Sea day #7

   Another Sea Day, number 7, heading for Boston, Massachusetts. Yesterday’s fog was still with us at sunrise which was at 7:49 a.m. The weather report from Yarmouth, N.S. had visibility at 400 meters. The waves were minimal, less than a meter. Anthem was just rounding the southern tip of Nova Scotia, Cape Sable, entering the Gulf of Maine. The afternoon and evening were spent in an area called Jordon Basin. Morning coordinates were 43°09.23 N and 65°33.52 W on course 236° at a steady speed of 10.3 knots, almost half the speed we cruised at on the Atlantic crossing. The fog horn sounded most of the day. The temperature was 15° C.

   Every passenger was issued an “Immigration Ticket” with a time and location on the ship to go to U.S. Customs and Border Protection tomorrow morning, before leaving the ship to explore Boston and surrounding area. It is necessary since Anthem is coming from Canada & Europe, not another American city. We will not need to do this at Cape Liberty, New Jersey, where the voyage ends in three days. Canadians and Americans only need their passports but citizens of other countries require visas to enter the U.S. The process to clear all passengers should take about two and half hours. Fortunately, our assigned time is during the first hour so we should have over seven hours to follow the Freedom Trail in old Boston.

    We went to the Diamond Club for a Continental breakfast buffet and macchiatos. We got our rain jackets and climbed back down to Deck 5. The decks were wet from the fog and mist and we walked on the Deck 5 exterior corridor, both the starboard and port sides.  On the port side, even though it was wet, it was not slippery, no other people were walking there and the smoking area was on the starboard side. The port side corridor was a little longer at 341 steps, one way. The fog made the end of the corridor a bit fuzzy. Later in the morning Larry uploaded yesterday’s photos by the Vintages wine bar where the Wi-Fi signal is strongest.

    The captain’s announcement at noon advised that it was 16° C with an east wind of 21 knots (39 km/hr) and half meter high waves. It had started to rain. On our way to lunch in the Solarium café, we went up to Deck 15 to the Seaplex to watch the Activities Manager lead a group of 30 guests through some Irish Dance moves for half an hour. After lunch we went back to Deck 5 to the Two70° stage, Douglas Vermeeren had another Enrichment Lecture, this time about his career as an actor revealing past and current movies and TV show. He is a regular actor on the TV series True Crime. We climbed back to Deck 14 after the lecture to order milkshakes from Johnny Rockets and take them back to the stateroom.

    Tonight was the third “formal” night, usually on a 12 day cruise there are only two “formal” nights. There were not quite as many people dressing up, but the photographers were at their places ready to take posed photos. There was pre-recorded ballroom and Latin dance music in the Music Hall at 5 p.m. We were the only couple dancing. We joined Jenny and Melvin for the special dinner tonight featuring Lobster Tails as the entrée and Baked Alaska as the dessert. Part way through dinner we heard the familiar chime for a captain’s announcement. He was advising passengers to please avoid the open desks 14 and 15 since a helicopter would be coming shortly to transport a passenger to hospital. An hour later the ship changed course to 171° and slowed to 3 knots for the task of allowing the helicopter to lower a basket for the patient with a medical emergency and raise them back into the helicopter. Thank goodness the seas were fairly calm and the wind was light. 

    Tonight in the Royal Theatre was the West End Musical: “We Will Rock You”, which we saw last cruise.  

    Clocks will move back one hour tonight to be on Boston time in the morning.


Total steps 14,193

location at 8 a.m.



the fog made the end of the corridor a bit fuzzy


Johnny Rockets for milkshakes


the ship changed course to 171° and slowed to 3 knots for the helicopter pickup









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