HAL 2019 World – Days 2 & 3 Days At Sea

January 26, 2019 Paul Groves


The next couple of days will involve getting into the groove of activities on sea days.  Paul and I usually have breakfast together then head off to enjoy different events.  We also include some walking exercise during the day (3.5 laps of the ship = 1 mile) Today’s walk was challenging due to high winds blowing the ocean spray from the ship back in your face.  Fortunately the ship is big enough to finish your exercise inside.

My events today included several lectures and my first cooking presentation of the cruise by Peruvian Chef Palmiro Ocampo.  Beside running his own restaurant in Lima, he devotes a lot of time teaching soup kitchen cooks in rural Peru how to improve the nutritional value of their food.  He also teaches them better ways use their local ingredients to minimize food waste in their preparation steps.

Today’s presentation showed two recipes: Crunchy Avocado with Broth & Botarga, and, Preserved Lemons.  They both look and smelled great but due to health regulations we weren’t allowed to sample them.

After the presentation we had lunch across the hall at the Pinnacle restaurant.  On the menu were Crab Cakes, Beef Fillet with Blue Cheese & Scalloped Potatoes, and, Fresh Berries for desert.  Great food!

Paul is attending watercolor classes.  The class starts from scratch learning about colors and moisture control which is great since Paul has barely held a brush since our last cruise.  Paul also brought a hand-stitching quilting project, “Hexies”, which is short for English paper piecing.  He’s already met several people doing the same sort of project, so he’ll learn how to do it as we go.  It is a slow project, but he has months to work on it.

Later that evening we met with our friends from the 2017 cruise for dinner.