Hello from Tenerife, Canary Islands

May 8, 2011 Happy Mothers Day--Aboard the MS Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Seas-- Mid Atlantic, about 30 degrees North
We just finished day seven of our transatlantic cruise on our way to Rome via stops next week in the Canary Islands, Mallorca and Corsica.
We have now been at sea since May 2. There is no television out here and we have decided not to use the ship’s internet access, which is slower than honey on a frosty morning.
The first six of our lectures have been well received, most to overflowing standing room only crowds. Today’s lecture was titled "The Life and Times of Charles Darwin." We have had many wonderful comments from the passengers, although we have had some frustration, since the technical staff has not always had the equipment ready for us. We have three more lectures before landing in Rome.
We are now at Greenwich Mean Time, which seven hours ahead of Pacific time and we will advance our clocks one more hour before our arrival in Rome. That will be an eight hour time change in seven days!
We really like this ship. It is the biggest we have ever been, with over 3000 passengers. It even has an ice rink onboard, with ten professional skaters who give shows from time to time. The evening entertainment is also excellent.
The food here meets Royal Caribbean’s high standards for quality and service. I believe the only way that you could go hungry on this ship is if you would eat nothing but whale blubber, which does not appear on the buffet.
The last few nights we went dancing at some of the nightclubs and we spend what little free time we have enjoying the rest of the ship. The high winds across the decks, often exceeding 40 knots, have pretty much eliminated outside activities all days but Friday.
We hope to send this message when we get to Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, on Tuesday.
We wish all of our blog readers well.
John and Donna
At sea.
May 9, 2011-- Aboard the MS Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Seas--Eastern Atlantic off the coast of Western Sahara, Africa
We have presented another successful show for a full house. We have gained quite a following with many of the guests coming to every one of our 7 lectures thus far. Our nautical themes continued today with our presentation on Life on a Square Rigger. We have only two more lectures to present before we land in Rome on Sunday. We are both tired but enjoying this daily lecturing and rehearsing.
This lovely ship is continuing eastward with our first port-of-call tomorrow. It will nice to have a day off and get our land legs back when we dock tomorrow morning on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. This group of seven+ islands are owned by Spain but located off the coast of Africa. We are anxious to tour the island and buy some euros and find an internet café where we can up-load this blog and read our email for the first time in nine days.
We are also looking forward to seeing the capital city and would like to find the African/Spanish market to see what they have for sale. Since we will be traveling so much we don’t want to get too many things but always are in search for something authentic from each port.
Beautiful blue skies and blue waters, but a thirty knot wind across our deck makes outside activities impossible. It will be nice to be able to walk in town instead.
We wish all of our blog readers well.
We are now 8 hours ahead of you in time and will not be able to read your responses until our next port of call.
John and Donna
At sea.