Philadelphia and at Sea

Grey clouds, fog, rain, Philadelphia! The long trip up the Delaware River was similar to a winter day in Seattle, we felt right at home. In our minds, Philadelphia is a coastal town, just look at a map. We learn that so much of what we think we know is not true on these trips!

The pier here is right under the flight path of the airport, just like in Boston. But here, we are lined up right next to row after row of Naval ships. We’ll find out today if it is an active port, if these are decommissioned ships, ships to be scrapped, or….? (The answer seems to be that they are decommissioned ships.)

We met John’s cousin Barb, her husband and daughter right outside of the pier. We all went into Philly to the famous South Street area where we had a huge lunch at an Irish pub and then just wandered the streets, talking and catching up on family news. We ducked into a few stores, took a few pictures and made lots of comments about how one end of South Street was nice and how seedy it becomes the other direction. We were in the area of what we used to call ‘head shops’. It might be more PC to say that it is an area of alternate lifestyles. Tattoo, anyone? Piercing, anyone? Thanks Barb, Bob and Kaitlin, we had a wonderful day with you!

Sunday is a ‘sea day’, the second of the four days on this trip when we do not visit a port. On this trip, sea days seem to have better weather than port days. Today the weather is nice, blue skies, a few puffy clouds and calm seas. At times, we can see city skylines to the west. We are traveling from Philly to Norfolk, VA and the distance is not great. We are going at about 7 knots, and these ships can do 20 knots. We were over three hours late leaving port last night, due to replacement of a piece of equipment in the engine room. And still, with the late departure, we are still puttering along.

John prefers port days, being in a new place each day, having an opportunity to explore. But sea days are filled with things to do on board. We can choose among;

Card games, a church service, arts and crafts, a bridge lesson, an ice carving demonstration, special Interest lectures (Global warming or "Wallis and the Windsor's"), ping pong, Bingo, trivia (at least twice daily), an art auction, magic trick lessons, Scrapbooking @Sea, goofy golf, a game based on Jeopardy, afternoon tea or ballroom dance classes.

It was a busy afternoon. We both went to Trivia, then Co had arts & crafts (flower making), then we both went to the art auction where we won a spa facial (Co has scheduled it for 8 on Wednesday morning). Co left the art auction early to get to the Scrapbooking @ Sea, and had to leave that early to meet John for the Jeopardy game. Whew!!

So you can see the old saying, ‘if you are bored, you are boring’ might be true here.

Just a side note. We have two hitchhikers on our deck. Sparrows, we guess, heading south for the winter and conserving energy. Smart little fellows.