Tuesday at Chania 9/7/21

Rough weather continued throughout the night and the ship didn't settle down until we docked at Chania. We went to breakfast rocking and rolling on sea legs even though the Eurodam sat quietly at its berth. 

The paragraph above was a far as I was able to get on my phone. I'm not sure what happened, but for two days everything else worked fine on my phone but when I tried to work on my blog, the controls that are hidden, except to the administrator, were in Greek. The rest of the blog was in English, but unable to open the controls, I couldn't do anything but read the blog. Big time bummer. 

I use Chrome as a browser now. Thought I'd try going back to Firefox, but the 

WiFi connection is slow so that wouldn't work. Finally fired up my laptop again, apologized for neglecting her, and got back to business. The big keyboard is a plus but the photo transfer process from phone to laptop is another cumbersome step that I can skip when posting from my phone.

Back to Chania. But first, answers to a couple questions that my sister asked. 

First, why the plates were broken at the bon voyage party? I had heard that it was a Greek custom after weddings, but good old Wikipedia has the definitive answer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_smashing

She also wanted to know who took the photo of me reclining on the deck chair. I took that myself with my selfie stick. I don't often use that because I don't often take selfies, but sometimes it comes in handy.

Iko and I decided to stay aboard the ship today. The excursions didn't interest us and the trip to town entailed a long walk across the dock apron then a long trip to town and back by bus. We decided some of the other Greek cities on our port call list would be more enticing.

The ship wasn't moving so when I walked the deck today, it was at my usual speed of plus or minus 3.5mph. Most people went off the ship so the decks were deserted.

We are docked port side to, so the deck crew was working with one of the

starboard lifeboats. These boats are used as lighters when anchored and the crew performs boat drills regularly when in port.  

Speaking of the crew, they sign on for six to nine months at a time so are eager to call home or catch up on email while the ship is docked, and they can get away from their tasks. I saw several of the Indonesian crew lounging on the deck that faced town so they could work their phones using local service instead of the expensive option shipboard. As I walked the deck I passed one woman who was laughing at one time, crying at another and looking rather stoic at another time. It must be tough on all of them, but especially the mothers who must leave their children in the care of grandmothers, sisters or others, while the mother is away. The pay is good by their home country standards but the separation must be long and painful. 

As part of the tour package, we were treated to a night in the Pinnacle Grill, one of the premium restaurants aboard. The meals (even my vegetarian options) were good and the service was outstanding. We enjoyed the special night on the town courtesy of the tour company.