Noon Report:

• Location:  N 16° 48.51′, E 040° 29.56′
• Speed: 15.6 knots
• Course: 308º
• Weather: High Overcast
• Temperature: 27 C; 81 F
• Wind: ESE 10 knots; 11.5 mph
• Sea: Calm

So yesterday I got notice from the vendor for our Petra excursion that the passport photos we sent them weren’t of sufficient quality to use in obtaining our visas and permits. Fine.
I spent the morning and the first part of the afternoon up in my favorite haunt – upstairs in the Explorer’s Lounge – as participants dropped by with their passports for me to photograph and send off.
Will they be of sufficient quality? I don’t know, but at least they are very consistent.

Along the way I took a break for quartet rehearsal.
I also did a bit of airplane shopping and found flights to New York for Thanksgiving
And Cheryl dropped by before lunch while we joined one of the Noon Team Trivia teams to lend what knowledge we could.

While I was upstairs hangin’ out, Cheryl was attending the normal string of lectures:

• 9:30 – Mystery of King Tut

• 11:00 – Abayas & Abstinence: Visiting Saudi Arabia & Other Diplomatic Tales

I sent the last of the passport photos off just in time to get downstairs for the 3:00 Choir rehearsal, followed by the 4:30 lecture on Unknown Heros – the stories of a pair of naval captains whose significance far exceeds their reputation. One is credited with ‘stealing’ the Suez Canal.

Then it was back to the room for a bit of work before the 6:30 From Whirling Dervishes to the World: Coffee’s Global Story.

While we were typing away our room steward showed up with Easter goodies:

After the 6:30 lecture it was the normal evening – dinner, BBB (11/18) and back to the stateroom to finish out the day.

Tomorrow is our vacation day while the ship is docked in Jeddah. Sadly, there will be no alcohol served while we are in port so no frozen drinks with little umbrellas served by the pool. But we’ll survive.

That’s it for now.
More later.
R

Cheryl’s Factoids:

• JEDDAH is a city with a very large harbor. It’s one of the most used gateways for those traveling to Mecca. They have the world’s largest desalination plant, some buildings made with coral, and outward facing houses.
• KING TUT: Boy king who only ruled 10 years and died at 18. His tomb is smaller and much more modestly decorated than other kings so it was probably originally a tomb for a non-royal person which was quickly adapted for Tutankhamun after his premature death. His tomb was broken into twice by robbers, but his mummy and most of his burial goods remained intact. Since the tomb was dug in the floor of the valley, it was quickly hidden by debris from floods and nearby tomb constructions. The Earl of Carnarvon (whose home in Highclere Castle in England has been used in the filming of Downton Abbey) was convalescing in Egypt when he met Howard Carter and agreed to finance his archeological digs. Three years later Carnavon was running low on money but agreed to give Carter one more year. By following where the water went when one of the worker’s sons spilled a drink, King Tut’s tomb was discovered in 1922 hidden under the guard post in front of the entrance to King Ramses II’s tomb. The quantity of golden items in the tomb sparked a media frenzy. When the Earl of Carnavon (and several others) died of malaria during the excavation, the media immediately proclaimed the tomb had a curse. Most of the 5,000 tomb items are now in the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza and the museum has declared his famous death masks will never leave Egypt again. Tutankhamun’s mummy was returned to his tomb but is now inside a climate-controlled glass box.