Early Morning Exercise

...evening...

... sky over the Baltic Sea ...

... early morning ...

I can walk 2 ½ miles an hour on deck 12 when the wind is blowing and the few others on the ship are awake.  

Some people were still enjoying yesterday for when I passed the Arcade, I noticed, they had not gone to bed yet.  

But for those of us who had retired early only another fellow beat me to the track, an older fellow, a serious runner if I could judge by the look of his calves.  

I didn’t see much else, for I kept my head down, it was so windy.

I was enjoying the half of the trip when my back was to the wind, and thinking of the high wind that comes with a Chinook.  

Many people were inside at the gym, but I choose the deck, the fresh air, the sight of the clouds at the horizon and the sun streaming through breaks in the clouds above me.

Wyona gave me a swimming suit cover up to wear through the halls when I go to the hot tub.  

Never having put it on to this point in my trip, I determined to go to the hot tub, after my walk was over and then to breakfast.   

Slowly Wyona and I are getting to know the other Canadians aboard – a quiet lot for when a masters of ceremony calls out how many Canadian’s are onboard, there is scarely a voice that can be heard responding.  

But now we know a couple from Vancouver, 2 from Quebec, and a couple from New Brunswick who asked us if they could join us.  

Their accent was definitely different from ours and with her New Bruswick lilt she finally said to us, “We have noticed you on board.”   

That makes me more nervous than it makes Wyona.  

“Oh don’t misundersand.  It is not because you are making fools of yourselves”, she said, which makes us even more nervous.

This morning an unshaven retired policeman from Quebec who spent 45 years on the force sat by us.  

He was alone.   

“Are you a Canadian,” I asked.   

"Why in the h*ll would you say that," he responded gruffly.

Taken aback, I replied, “The tattoo on your arm looked like the one my Uncle Loran had, and he was in the RAF.”  

“So, you are right.  I joined the army when I was 17,” he replied, “too young for the profession of policeman that I wanted so I spent 3 years in the army first at Sarcee in Calgary.”

Wyona kept her head down and ate her food.   

“I’m not saying anything,” she said later, “to a man whose wife won’t eat breakfast with him.

She is fun to travel with.


Arta