Is it Time to Wake Up Already??: Hello Dolly--Day 2

Our first "Fun Day at Sea" started innocently enough. D and I woke up and went up to the Lido Deck to eat breakfast around 10. After we ate, we went directly to the pool. It was pretty hard to find a spot to sit, everyone had the same idea we did, to get in some sun!! Here are some shots of the calm before the storm:

Pretty soon, there was a little storm on the horizon. I took a picture of it thinking, "Well, we've never had it rain on us on the ocean, it'll be a first." Man, I had no idea!!

After the above rain shower hit, they moved the sky pool's roof, so that people could lay by the pool, in spite of the rain. This is a shot of the roof as it moved.

We decided to head toward our cabin, even though we only had about 30 minutes by the pool. However, by the time we made it around to heading back in, the skies had cleared. Everyone else had left, so we claimed another couple of chairs and soaked up about 20 minutes more of the sun. Hehe, while we were sitting there, I had Donia pose in front of me. What she didn't know (until later) was that I had her stop right where the fantail would look like it was coming out of her head.....me, I know I'm evil sometimes!! :-)

Before long, our new spot was also dampened by another rainstorm. We decided to call it quits on the laying out idea.

Here are some shots of the storm, as it continued that afternoon. Pretty soon, we began to hear a buzz that we were actually going through Tropical Storm Dolly. This was really a shock to us, because on Embarkation Day, the captain made an annoucement that we would NOT be affected by the then tropical depression in the Gulf. In fact, he told us that we would be going completely away from it, staying 250 miles away! Yay, we were in the clear, no worries.

So that is why I didn't believe it when I heard that we were going through a tropical storm, surely it was just a little rainstorm, right? WRONG! I went down to the internet cafe and checked the weather.....Our little rainstorm was actually Tropical Storm Dolly. We went actually pretty close to the eye from what I could figure....crazy! I think that the captain was trying to go around it, and it blew up so fast and filled the entire gulf. That made it very hard for him to "go around it." Also, with the intensity that it blew up, it was pretty shocking to learn that even though it was actually a TS, it was only 4 miles an hour away from being a hurricane. And in fact it did become a hurricane just a few hours after we went through it. So....we pretty much went through a hurricane.....crazy crazy crazy!!!

Poor Donia didn't do well with the storm. I think she was actually a little sick before we came, but the rocking of the boat during the storm made it worse for her. She actually napped that afternoon while I went to lunch with the 'rents. I brought her lunch in bed, but she was puny for most of the rest of the afternoon.

She did get up for the newlywed game in the main lounge. Here we are, just enjoying some time inside.....with Dolly raging outside.

The video below was a shot of the ocean outside our balcony during the storm. I wish I had a video to show the way the ocean is when there's not a storm raging, it's really quite calm most of the time.

Not long before dinner the skies starting clearing a little, we were hoping that it was the beginning of the end of the storm. It was actually just a little lull. It started back up pretty soon, and lasted well into the middle of the night.