The Nautica is fairly small by today’s standards, only 630 passengers. While Americans are the largest group, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany and the Netherlands are all represented. This makes for some interesting and enlightening conversations.
This is our third cruise on the Nautica, previously we sailed in Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean. Many of the passengers have sailed ten and twelve cruises on this ship. Over 80 are continuing from the previous voyage of Western Africa and some will stay on the next cruise.
Oceania, the parent company, does not schedule a lot of day time activities. There may be a lecture on local or world issues. We are taking intermediate bridge lessons and playing duplicate. Our trivia group consists of Canadians and Americans and is doing only okay on the obtuse questions asked by Dottie, the cruise director.
While breakfasts are traditional and the same everyday, lunch has some variation. Dinner is the most innovative, with dishes like ostrich (it tastes like beef, not chicken, and is good). There are two “reservation” restaurants, Polo and Toscana, where we will dine three times in each on this cruise. With open seating, we enjoy meeting a variety of table mates each evening.
Because of its history with Somali pirates, we attended a unique lecture on the story of the attempted hijacking of Nautica, the ship we are on, two years ago by Somali pirates. The Captain, who was in command that day, described the “business” of Somalian hijacking, the boats used, other ships safety procedures, and Oceania’s safety measures which includes an Israeli security detail (truly a comfort to us).
Our ship is much faster than the pirate boats, has a deck too high for them too reach and has many safety devices in place should an attack take place. There are some people who are on board now who had been on the Nautica during the 10 minute attack two years ago and don’t seem concerned. The captain did a good job of easing our few concerns.
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