Three Ships on Christmas Morning

 

Costa Maya, Quintana Roo, MX (12/25/23) -

Christmas mornings have always been magical.

The first glimpse of loot under the Christmas tree, never mind how it got there…which gave way to the joy of watching our own kids' first glimpse of loot under the tree, eventually knowing full-well how it got there, regardless. And that magic continues with grand-kids' Christmas morning excitement. That's the best Christmas miracle of all.
We saw it all...on video.

 

This year's Christmas found my bride and I cruising the Gulf of Mexico, escaping the frozen tundra of December's upper Texas Gulf Coast for the sultry climes of the northeastern Yucatan peninsula. Our ship, the RCCL Voyager of the Seas, docked in the port of Costa Maya shortly after dawn on Christmas morning.

 

There is nothing quite like a sunrise at sea. A sunrise approaching port provides more of a sense of scale of the awesomeness. Other vessels seem diminutive in comparison, and one's own finite existence is placed in proper perspective.

 

Christmas Day 2023 at Costa Maya dawned besmirched by clouds. The ship had sailed through a frontal system overnight, adding extra movement to its rhythmic rolling in the waves. (I would come to find, days after returning home, my inner ears still gently suggesting the swaying of the ship on the sea!) So these clouds were still scudding across the emerging sun, obscuring its initial appearance on the horizon.

 

I had taken position at the forward-most point on the ship--the helipad on the 5th deck. Only one other brave passenger was up on deck at this hour--he with his $2,000 SLR camera, and me with my $1,000 smart phone camera* to greet the day's dawning.
(The images we captured would turn out identical.)

 

The port pilot's launch came alongside the starboard gangway, and the pilot grabbed a crewman's hand as he leapt across a narrow gap of moving seawater. The ship slowed to a ghost's crawl as it approached the pier, silently sliding  in place--docking "Texas style," nose to sea--as shore workers secured her lines to the mooring bollards.

 

Two other cruise liners were already in place when we arrived. Our vessel had played tag with them across the Gulf, and now, a great maritime meet-up was taking place as passengers from all three blended and merged on their way to the mercado on shore.
I literally saw three ships** on Christmas Day.

-------

*That's replacement cost these days; I didn't spend that much for this device, so don't bourgeoisie me.

 ** https://www.godtube.com/popular-hymns/i-saw-three-ships/

 

A Christmas to Remember

This year for Christmas my bride and I "escaped" onto a five day northwestern Caribbean cruise.In many ways it was just what the doctor ordered for us both.
Here are a few observations I noted during the voyage.

(Somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, 12/23/23) -
I am sitting in the 11th Deck common serving area, on the northbound end of a southbound cruise ship, the RCCL/Voyager of the Seas. It's not quite noon in this latitude, and the late breakfast crowd is slowly shuffling out as the early lunch bunch arrives.
The wait staff has been here since before 6am.
 

The wrap around windows here provide a 180° view that encompasses the stern and a magnificent perspective of twin trails of aquamarine and white foam marking the track of the vessel.
It is sublime.
 

There is a literal parade of humanity aboard the Voyager: Families celebrating Christmas at sea--some for the first time--and some that are 'old salts' at cruising. Some have packed matching pajamas in red or green plaids, posing before giant-squid sized Christmas trees on the 5th deck promenade.

 

There would seem to be a clash of cultures, with young women in braids, mid-cropped T's, and short shorts leaving little to the imagination; proper, Asian families of three and four generations, nappily dressed with children perfectly comported; African men in Arabic kaftans and their wives (only one, each!) elegantly ornate with jewelry and designer jogging suits.
But it's Christmas weekend, and everyone is pretty harmonious, with peace on earth,
goodwill to men, and all that jazz.
Even in the food serving lines.
 

There's another parade, here, too, comprised of a multi-national serving crew. Name tags proudly boast polysyllabic proper nouns with more consonants than the tongue can comprehend, and their national origins are added as if an after thought: South Africa, Malaysia, Philippines, and Ghana among the place names I recognize.
Others I file away to research later.
 

A lovely woman with a long, dark, braided pigtail and wide hips navigates between the jumbled tables with a serving tray, retrieving used dishes. Her uniform trousers bunch
around her ankles because the cut of the pants are a little long because of the accommodation they provide for her hips. She circulates tirelessly in the swarming crowd of cruisers.
 

We will arrive at our first port of call by noon tomorrow, Christmas Eve Sunday. Plenty of time for breakfast and an informal worship service among like-minded friends before the ship disgorges her human cargo to ravage the shopping stalls ashore like a hoard of locusts.
 

The ship tracks ever southward, gently rocking in the swells of the Gulf of Mexico. A  cacophony of a half-dozen languages echoes through the dining lounge.
It is a Christmas to remember.

When Your Work Around Needs a Work Around

Our company recently switched telecom providers, going from one digital service to another, supposedly less expensive provider (keep that point in the back of your mind). Haply, all the employees turned-in their desktop phone instruments and began using telephone service through their individual desktop computers with wired and/or wireless headsets.
Alexander Graham Bell’s head would probably explode.

In my little corner of the office, literally, there is the studio wherein we produce our daily Radio show, complete with live-streaming on YouTube, and occasionally, a guest interview or two by phone. That phone system is managed by a Comrex STAC device that had worked very well with our previous telephone service provider, but apparently ran afoul of the new guys’ system for no good reason that was offered to me. Their solution was to “stick with the old provider,” but to buy the new guys’ service as well.
What a wonderful sales pitch.

And for a period, that’s what it seemed we were going to do. I would occasionally check the phone line for a dial tone and be comforted by the dual pitch tone buzzing in my ear.
Until it didn’t.

Today we learned the phone number assigned to our Studio gear had been mistakenly ported-over into the new system, effectively cancelling the working service on that line. There’s no going back, and there’s no going forward, since the new guys say they cannot integrate the Comrex unit into their system. 

My work-around is to take calls into the show via the phone system that’s in place at our host Radio station, and pipe them into our audio stream through our remote connection.
Except…AT&T seems to have severed the phone lines for our Radio partner.

What do you do when your work-around needs a work-around?
Stay-tuned, as they say, for the outcome.
But don’t even think of calling-in now; operators are not only not standing by, they don’t care, and they’ve apparently left the building.