Our Friday was another sea day spent doing our usual reading, games, lectures and a movie.  Our dinner was at the captain's table with the captain and general manager and four other guests.  It was an enjoyable evening although different than in the past as none of the officers are allowed to drink any alcohol.  Both the captain and general manager are Italian so they are used to having wine with dinner.  They told us that they are now subjected to random surprise testing.
The highlight of Saturday (another sea day) was the "country fair" where the different departments on the ship set up carnival type game booths.  The passengers can win raffle tickets for various prize drawings.  The crew enjoys this as much as the passengers.
Saturday evening entertainment was the "Cirque" type show put on by the entertainment staff.  They did a remarkable job considering we were having a "bouncy" ride at the time.

Entertainment staff were in the pool and if you touched them with the "whale" you won a ticket

Housekeeping staff had two passengers racing to place straws in bottles and then removing them

Bar staff was a football game complete with cheer leaders

Male bar staff cheer leader!

Officers conducted camel race where you had to wind the string on a bar while seated backwards in chair

The Maldives are made up of 1192 islands, mostly coral atolls, only 200 of the islands are inhabited.  The economy is mostly tourism and fishing.  The city of Male' is the business center with the high end resorts on other islands, even the international airport is on another island.  We anchored in the late afternoon and many people had afternoon tours but we decided to stay on the ship and plan on going ashore in the morning. During the evening we had the "Gala BBQ" on the pool deck with entertainment. It was quite a spread that included suckling pig, lobster, sushi and everything else you can imagine.
The country  is Sunni Muslim and Friday is their holy day so most things were closed but we did see the fish market and the produce market.  It seemed like motorcycles and scooters outnumbered the cars about 100 to 1.  The city is mostly built on reclaimed land and the buildings are jammed together but it was surprisingly clean.  We did a quick walk around for about one hour then went back to the ship as it was getting quite warm.  In these hot, humid climates it is always a relief to get back to the air conditioning on the ship.

The airport runway starts right on the ocean

City of Male'

Pool deck is decorated for the Gala BBQ

Fancy bread sculptures

There were lots of ice sculptures as well as carved fruits and vegetables

There about one hundred fishing boats tied up in the harbor with our ship visible in the background

Fish are displayed in tiled bins in the fish market

Thousands of motorcycles and scooters line every space at the curb

There were about a dozen Maldives Coast Guard ships of different sizes in the port

We have had two very relaxing sea days, the water has been very calm, just like a lake.  Yesterday we crossed the equator (our seventh time) in the early morning.  In the evening we had the King Neptune Ceremony which is always entertaining.  It usually involves someone kissing a fish or something similar.  This one was one of the pretty girls from the entertainment staff dressed as a mermaid.  All the men that had not crossed the equator before were lined up to kiss the mermaid and then they switched her for a guy dressed as a really ugly mermaid, it was pretty funny.
We had spent most of the last two days just reading, going to lectures, playing games and napping!  We did finally see some sea life, a large pod of dolphins and lots of tiny flying fish.  This afternoon we will be docking in Male' in the Maldives.

Guests gathering to play "Top Toss"

We had a special "Tea Time" with British treats

Our trivia team "The Nifty Six"

Everyone gathered for the "King Neptune Ceremony"

King Neptune

The ceremony had many of the entertainment staff dressed in great costumes

Today we docked early in the port of Mahe (the main island) in the Seychelles.  What a pleasant surprise to see nice streets with no trash, beautiful buildings and lush green foliage.  We had an early tour in a small bus that took us up some very narrow, winding roads to the National Park where we had a nice view of the island.  We were lucky in that is was not raining as our guide said it had rained all day for the last three days.  The temperature was only in the low eighties but it was humid. We next stopped at a tea plantation for a break and were served a cup of their product and many guests bought some of the tea to take home.  We drove back down the winding road to a botanical garden.  It was very nicely maintained, with the trees and plants being labeled.  They also had a number of the giant tortoises in an enclosure.  The tortoises are only native to one of the other islands but have been brought here for display.  The other animals that were in the gardens were the giant fruit bats, we saw a lot of them hanging in the trees and some were flying.  Our young female guide had graduated from the academy here that provides degrees in tourism and we were her first tour.  She did a very good job and was quite informative.  We made it back to the ship in time for lunch and will have a free afternoon to spend on board before we sail at 4 pm.

Much of the power is generated with wind turbines built on man made islands

Beautiful views from the National Park

Our small buses parked at the tea plantation

The Seychelles are known for their beautiful beaches

Our ship docked in the port with a Costa ship just behind us

The giant fruit bats hanging in a tree

The giant tortoises were trying to eat this small bush

Our stop in Mombasa Kenya was cancelled due to recent activity by Islamic terrorists and kidnappings in parts of Kenya.  The port of Dar Es Salaam was substituted instead.  We have been to four African countries on this cruise and Morocco and Egypt in the past.  With the exception of South Africa there is a common sight in the other countries.  Lots of mostly young men standing around with nothing to do.  It is no wonder they get recruited to various terrorist groups.
We are en route to the Seychelles which is part of the African union but really has nothing in common with other African nations.  We will be two days at sea and since we are sailing across the Indian Ocean the ship has taken extra security measures.  All the blinds and drapes are closed at night so the ship is less visible.  The fire hoses are all attached to the railings pointing to the sea, at the rear of the ship are 24 hour security watches (probably on the bridge also) and we were told that there is a device that can emit a directed high frequency sound.  Tom has saved Ketel One, Backhouse Pinot Noir, and Heineken bottles to throw at any pirates that get close.

Security watch in yellow vest

Fire hoses at the ready all around the ship

Dar Es Salaam is the largest and richest city in Tanzania with a population of about 4.5 million.  Although it is highly muslim the women are not as covered as in Zanzibar.  We were scheduled to take a five hour afternoon tour but after hearing unfavorable reports from the morning tours we decide to cancel our tour and just take the shuttle bus to town.  It was about a 30 minute drive to the "shopping mall", some of it through the nicer areas where the foreign consulates were located.  Many of the buildings were very nice with ocean views although even the more modest homes had razor wire and or electic security fencing.  The "mall' turned out to be a few nicer shops including a pharmacy, a jewelry store, several clothings shops and some restaurants.  There was another separate area that had tiny open air shops that were jammed with local crafts and souvenirs, mostly the same junk we had seen in the last three ports.  These shops were very small, about the size of a closet and it was very hot so it was very uncomfortable to even look in the doors.  The ride back to the ship took a little longer as our driver stopped twice (for some unknown reason) and got off the bus and went into a small store, he came back with nothing and got back in and drove on with no explanation.  Traffic here is a free for all, with passing into oncoming traffic, lots of horn honking and apparently stop signs are only a suggestion.  It was good to get back to the ship safely!

The nicer shops in the "mall"

The tiny craft shops

Double tree hotel on the beach next to the mall

American consulate

The British consulate

The Russian consulate had the most security

We have seen KFC all over Africa

Zanzibar, Tanzania was very interesting with a history of Portuguese, English, Germans and Arabs, most speak English and Swahili.  It is predominately Muslim and the women are covered, although they mostly wear vibrant colors.  Most of the men wore western clothing, particularly tee shirts, although our guides wore traditional long skirted clothing.  We took a tour to the "Jozani Forest", a national park.  It was very primitive by our standards.  We did see several types of monkeys.  The ride to the forest was about one hour in a small bus that was a Toyota "Coaster" and we were able to see how the locals lived.  We continue to be amazed at the huge number of people that sit or stand around doing nothing. The were hundreds of very small "shops" along the road selling everything including bottled drinks, lumber, building materials, clothing, toys, produce, fish, furniture and virtually everything else.  Some were in small buildings and others were just open air.  On our ride back to the ship we drove through "Stone Town" which is a World Heritage Site.  It has narrow winding alleys with many very old buildings.  There are several large Western hotels here and several under construction.  Zanzibar was certainly a step up from Mozambique and Madagascar.

We needed about 40 of these small buses to handle all the tours

One of the areas of open markets

The women mostly wore colorful clothing and carried their burdens on their heads

Red Colobus monkeys

We did not see any of the animals on the sign!

Mangrove swamp

Stone Town