January 7 -- no, I did not fall overboard

This blogging business is going to be more complicated than I thought. But then, everything is more complicated than one thinks, and it all turns out interesting.

I'm sitting at a computer in the Explorations Cafe, with the monitor at a window beyond which I can see the ocean all the way to the edge. We're riding a gentle swell that lifts the ship and then lets her down. I took a walk around the promenade deck earlier, and when the ship settles down into the waves, she leaves a glorious brilliant white wake, splashing up not all that far, but enough to be hypnotic. I walked around the ship twice, equal to a little over half a mile, happily letting the breeze disarrange the curls Becky Elliott gave me to make my look like I actually have a normal amount of hair. When the sun comes out, the ocean becomes a deep, elegant blue like the background of the stars on the flag.

I still haven't unpacked. My cabin is a disaster area. I'm sure eventually I will stow everything away (Notice that nautical term, "stow"? I'm at sea. I'm on a boat in the middle of the ocean. I'm happy.) somewhere, if only back into the suitcases and thence under the bed. Right now I'm watching the ocean go by as I blog.

Blogging is going to be a bit of a hassle, I'm afraid. Sometimes, I can connect to the Web from my cabin -- without telling anyone, Holland-America has extended their routers to provide wireless access throughout the ship. Unfortunately, connectivity seems somewhat arbitrary, so sometimes I can connect from the cabin and sometimes I can't. And composing on my tablet, then uploading it to the blog is a process I can't seem to figure out. Which means when I blog as I am now, with the ocean streaming past just beyond the monitor (I'm happy!), I'm using up my first installment of internet minutes. Ah well, everything has its price.

Dinner on board last night was wonderful. The menu would have done any high-end restaurant proud, but there was one entree marked as a gourmet chef's creation. I figured, what the heck, if they're going to offer cuisine, who am I to order hamburger? Chicken with cornbread stuffing. Tender, flavorful, luscious. Really, really, really good. If you ask, they will serve you a reduced portion, which is plenty. And yes, I had dessert (red forest cake, good, but not up to the standards of the chicken), and no, I did not have a reduced portion of that. Good company at table, including a woman who has been on 30 -- no, really, 30 world voyages. She's in a wheelchair, traveling with her daughter. 30 world voyages.

So far, one is almost more ecstasy than I can stand.