Day 18

Day 18 – Penang - Mumbai – Friday 2/6/12

Weather – Fine and Sunny 28C - 31C

Sunrise – 6.36am

Sunset – 7.32pm

Time difference - minus 4 hours ex Sydney.

Throughout the day Sun Princess maintained a north-westerly course through the Arabian Sea keeping approximately 15 miles off the west coast of India on our starboard side. This evening at 9pm we passed 28 miles from St George Island and 30 miles from Mormugao Head (Goa) on our starboard side.

Wow, what a day. I have mentioned that sea days usually mean RELAX days, well not today for us. After our morning laps, and breakfast Donna was straight to Line Dancing in the Vista whilst I did my photo maintenance , updated the blog and cleared the emails.

What I call my photo maintenance is downloading all the photos off the SD card onto the netbook, and culling the unwanted ones and filing away the ones we want to keep. We are not too particular about what and when we click away, which is clearly a huge benefit of digital cameras. We just hold down the button, and on average keep about 1 or 2 out of 10, as there are many very similar photos, so we just pick the best of each.

I then also download the keepers onto the iPad, so we have multiple storage repositories. I have not yet stored any to the iCloud yet, not quite sure how that works with photos, but if we find ourselves with idle time on shore with free wi-fi, I will check it out, but our priority on shore is to soak up the port/city we are visiting. From the photos on the iPad I select a few to publish on the blog. I prepare the post off-line and have it ready on the iPad, then publish when ashore.

We then got ready for our 2nd Cruise Critic lunch in the Regency Dining Room. The inaugural lunch was attended by about 85-90 people which I thought was outstanding, so I was staggered when we filled and additional two tables of 10, so we had over 100 join us. We sat with people who we had not yet met, which was really nice.

After lunch it was straight down to the Vista for a dance lesson, which this time was for me. I have committed to at least learn how to dance the Waltz properly. I got the hang of the basics, and was learning how to turn, but had to take off and race back to the cabin to prepare for the big race meeting. Then it was down to the Patisserie on deck 5 for our syndicates pre-meeting meeting, finalising the last of the decorations. The co-owner who was going to introduce how horse to the crowd piked out on us, so I was elected to step in, go on stage, introduce the horse. I can now give the details of our horse as secrecy is no longer required.

Horse's name

• PISTON BROKE

Breeding

• By JOHNNIE WALKER BLACK out of WHITE HARLOT
• Half Brother to I CAN'T GET NO SATISFACTION and THE PUB WITH NO BEER

Colours

• BLACK and WHITE

Born

• In the infamous suburb of Sydney's Kings Cross

Owners

• REGENCY 151 SYNDICATE (our dinner table)

Jockey

- One of New Zealand's famous, the gorgeous BABE RUTH ( she looked fantastic)

Trainer

• Craig Thompson in the Red Light District

Former Trainer

• In Queen's Square by Slippery Pete

It was a fantastic race, very exciting all way. Our horse was very slow out of the gates and was a lap behind at one stage, but he stormed home to be just pipped at the post. Pam and Randy's syndicate were the winners of the $900 winners take all purse. Our horse was voted the best decorated for which we were awarded a few trinkets. It was just the best fun. The Vista Lounge was packed with people who all got into the spirit and excitement of the event.

We then went up to the top deck to grab a coffee, and chill out as it had been so hectic a day, and we bumped into some of our co-owners, so a 10 minute cuppa became another extended social chat.

After another yummy Regency dinner it was back down to the Vista Lounge for the Country and Western party, for which we were dressed appropriately, including Cowboy hats. We finished the evening with a relax at the Movies – watching “We bought a Zoo”

Another great day