Today was fun with bridge and cooking with Chef Geary, but the most exciting was our stepped-up security for potential pirate attacks. Our captain announced today that now we have guards on deck 24 hours a day. Doug and I walked the deck after dinner to check it out. Below are some of the pictures that best show it:
One of the hoses rolled out and ready for action to spray them down/swamp their boats.
One of many security guards on deck – in front of sonic weapon that will break eardrums of anyone within about 150 yards. It is a non-lethal weapon.
This shows the security guard looking through his night vision binoculars to make sure there are no pirate boats in the area. They look green – just like in the movies!
Days before the captain had announced that not only were we not going to the Seychelles, but we were also going 1,000 miles further out of our way to take extra precaution as the pirates have extended their range. At the captain’s dinner last night I asked him if in some small way he wouldn’t like to be the captain of the ship who wiped out the pirates as they attacked. His response: “I’d rather go the extra 1,000 miles.”
Well, with pirates behind us, on to cooking. Today we made a tasty lunch: Chinese chicken salad, creamy chicken sauce (with ham) over pasta, and a cold pasta salad with blue cheese and walnuts (my least favorite.) The best, of course, were the very chocolate cookies I helped make! They had three kinds of chocolate chips in them plus Dutch process cocoa powder (that gives a deeper chocolate flavor and look.) Don’t know if I enjoyed the dough or the baked cookie more!
Chefs Durand and Geary making chocolate cookies!
Tonight after dinner we went to see a British magician/comedian. His comedy was very British and almost like a Monty Python act. The magic was pure silliness, but he made everyone laugh a lot.
As I was just about to close this down (10:45 p.m.), the all system alarm sounded. Smoke has been detected on the ship, so this was a fire warning. They have yet to discover where it is, but will get back to us.
They got back to us: the captain came on to let us know that all is well – a minor galley fire in one of the restaurants has been extinguished. Now we can all sleep well!
No comments:
Post a Comment