Noon Report:

• Location: N 06° 27.80′, E 093° 42.80′
• Speed: 14 knots
• Course: 266º
• Weather: Partly Cloudy
• Temperature: 28 C; 82 F
• Wind: E 9 knots; 10 mph
• Sea: 1-2 ft swells

Today we began our crossing of the Andaman Sea on our way to Sri Lanka.

We began by sleeping until a civilized hour – which meant I didn’t get out to the deck until the sun was up – and brutal. Oh the sacrifices we make.

After breakfast we called for an appointment with the cruise consultant – and were able to meet with him immediately. One of the perks of booking a future cruise while on a cruise is that you get credits to use on this cruise. And since we were already thinking ahead, we booked a cruise from Montreal to Ft. Lauderdale in late September 2024. Anyone interested in joining us, holler.

Having made serious inroads into next year’s travel budget we moved to the upper Explorer’s Lounge to work on catching up BLOGs – so we skipped the morning lectures: “Thailand and the Vietnam War” and “Southeast Asia – The Center of the Center” – We’ll catch the second one on a rebroadcast in the next day or so.

After lunch we continued our catch-up until the 3:00 choir rehearsal.

The 4:30 lecture was most interesting: “Asiatic Footnotes?” covered the history of footwear in the region from Imelda Marcos’ shoes to the practice of foot binding in China.

Following a short break to continue BLOG work, the 6:30 lecture “Flying the Hump – the China Burma Theatre During WWII” covered the efforts to fly supplies from India over the Himalayas to China to support Chiang Kai-shek’s army in its war with Japan (which very helpfully tied up some of the Japanese forces and kept them out of the war going on in the Pacific). The planes of that time were barely up to flying over the many 20,000 foot high peaks, were not insulated against the cold, and were not pressurized for those altitudes (pilots and any crew had to wear lots of clothes and oxygen masks). This was a very hazardous route and with today’s retreating glaciers, many bodies are just now being recovered. After the War in the Pacific, these experienced pilots (who knew what was needed to make a supply chain work) were used in the Berlin Air Lift as, on June 24, 1948, Soviet forces had blockaded all road, rail, and water routes into Berlin’s Allied-controlled areas of the city. The US and UK air lift, however, brought in supplies for more than a year to the people until the Soviets ended the blockade in May of 1949.

Then it was dinner and BBB.
Tonight was “Guess the year.” night. Bruce read a series of events that occurred in each of 15 years and we had to guess the year. We scored 19 of 30 (2 points if you got the year exactly, 1 point if you came within 1 year of the correct answer) which was good enough for second place. Not bad considering that we had no real hope of doing very well with this format.

Finally, it was back to the room to finish this entry and prepare for sea day #2.