October 19, 2008 - At Sea and Salalah Oman

Although we will have a 3 hour stop in Salalah, Oman, this will essentially be a sea day. We dock at 4:00pm and at 5:30 there will be a pool deck party with the officers serving cocktails & caviar while we look over the side at the crew unloading 3 containers and moving the provisions onboard. The officers will serve because the normal deck crew will be working on the dock. The temperature was in the mid 80’s so we had “grillades” on the pool deck. Fish, pork chops, steak, chicken & bratwurst were cooked on the grill and went well with chardonnay under smooth seas and sunny skies.

Following an interesting afternoon lecture we went on deck to watched sailing into Salalah harbor and docking next to our 3 containers. We went to afternoon tea, won trivia again and went back out on deck again to watch some of the container unloading. It was interesting that the Captain, Hotel Mgr and F&B Mgr were on the dock unloading pallets and passing boxes to crew on the gangway. None of the crew were on the dock so it must have been some stevedore restriction. The only locals seemed to be the fork lift operators. The tide was low and the ballast was shifted to the water side to lift the ship’s hold door closer to the dock level. We got dressed for dinner and went back on deck for the caviar & cocktail party. The deck was decorated with balloons and the band was playing. The containers were unloaded and provisions on board by 7:15pm and we headed out to sea again.

We had a fun dinner with friends, didn’t care for the entertainer so played a bit of blackjack and finally went to the Stars Lounge for “English Pub Night.” There were pub style decorations & English ales and the band & singers played Beatles tunes from 10:30 til midnight.