Saturday - Day 23 - Sea Day

We are heading back east and south in our last week of the cruise.

Our next port will be at Runevik in the Faroe Islands. Gage gave a port talk, which we attended, about our next four ports, including the Faroe Islands.

In the afternoon, there was a cake competition on the schedule, with the captain competing against some of the professionals on the staff in cake making. The captain said that his skill was that his cake was more "moist" than that of the others. The professionals indicated that they were making Black Forest Cake, while the captain indicated he was making, "We'll see what it is at the end" cake!

I don't know if you can see on the large screen that the captain is pouring a liberal amount of liquor onto the layer of his cake. The professionals put layers of fruit and buttercream between each layer. Captain smashed the fruit into the frosting and put that between his layers.

Another layer for the captain, and another "moistening" from the bottle.

When all finished, the cakes were displayed.

The captain's cake was revealed to be an eclipse cake, with fruits to represent the planets and stars that we could see in the sky during the total eclipse, and the chocolate spikes represented the Perseid meteor showers that were at their peak on the same day as the solar eclipse! (The vertical line through the left side of the cake is a separation in the screens.)

Cruise director Jai taste tested all of the cakes...

... Jai declared that the chef on the right end of the table (I can't remember his name) had the best tasting cake, pastry chef Donna had the cake that best identified with the Black Forest theme, and that Captain's cake was most creative.

The audience then got to vote with applause... and after the outstanding job Captain Timmers did in getting us to the solar eclipse, and with his cake's solar eclipse theme, he was the overwhelming winner!

We also went to the Tea in the afternoon and enjoyed visiting with a man from Ottawa, Canada. He and his wife have been cruising for 30 years -- I think at least 30 cruises, and only one of which was *not* on Holland America. We asked lots of questions and got lots of input on cruises that we would like to do "next"!

This evening was the masquerade party, so when Jai came onto the World Stage to introduce the entertainer, he ready to participate in the masquerade!

The entertainer for the evening was Singer and Harpist Iris Kroes. She had participated in "The Voice" in The Netherlands (she indicated that "The Voice" is an export from The Netherlands, that it started there). I think she indicated that she won on "The Voice" 15 years ago.

When we got back to our room, we had a towel animal on our bed... we're not exactly sure what it is, but, oh well!

As always, we like sea days!