31st July

31st July Sea Day Partly cloudy Temp 29c
I have some excitement to report. Last night the wind blew up quite a lot causing some movement of the ship so much so that as the noise was keeping me awake I decided to take a sleeping tablet. Just prior to me going to sleep there was a call over the ship's PA for a person from the Engineering staff to contact the bridge. Betty tells me that we got a call on the phone at 2am to ask if we were OK. (Not sure what this was about but will tell you more soon). A little while after this she heard what she thought was a plane circling us. I slept through all of this. Eventually all went quiet and she went to sleep. A bit of background. I don't think I have mentioned this before but if at any time we go out on our balcony and leave the door open we get a call from the bridge to say are we OK because our fire alarm has triggered. Last time it happened Betty queried why this should happen all the time. They promised to get it checked out. This morning before we left for breakfast a technician came and changed the detector with what looks like a new design we will see what happens tomorrow when we will be on the balcony during the Panama Canal transit. When we asked the technician what happened last night he told us that someone on a yacht was injured and as we were the closest ship we went to their aid. A helicopter was also sent out but as the wind was strong it could not do a rescue so a boat from the ship was lowered and the person is now on board and will be taken off in the Panama. People in cabins at the stern of the ship were disturbed when they prepared the back deck in case the helicopter had to land there. How exciting and I missed it all.
The port talk this morning was for Mantra for which we had not booked a tour so we were interested to hear what there is to see there. We are now booked on a tour.
Entertainment wise tonight in the Princess Theatre was. Production show called Vintage Vegas and you guessed it the costumes were great, as Bob on our table said what there was of them. The dancers have improved a bit but the singers stole the show with music of our era. The night was topped off with the group having hot chocolates.
Should anyone like to you can see us going through the locks in the Panama Canal by tuning in to www.pancanal.com We go through the Gatun lock at 8.50am the Pedro  Miguel lock at 12.35pm and the Miralores lock at 3.20pm all are Panama time which is 15 hours behind Melbourne time.