We arrived early in the morning.  It’s very smoggy at the port.  Unfortunately, pollution smog.

I have to tell you, yesterday we were out on deck, in the middle of the ocean, when we started smelling something bad.  Bad like, roadkill bad.  I went to investigate and it wasn’t pretty.  Garbage in the water so it was the smell of a garbage dump but floating.  You see these things on TV, but seeing and smelling this in person was disgusting and sad.  It looks like it was caught in an ocean current so who knows where it came from.  Soon we were through it and the fresh ocean air was back.  

After seeing the garbage, it changed my mind about throwing my wine bottle into the sea with a message (actually, my blog).  At some point, I told Bob that a message in a bottle would be a quicker way to blog than the internet in the middle of the Indian Ocean.  No, I will not throw anything into the ocean after witnessing this.

Back to Colombo.  We knew in advance that we would not be disembarking in Colombo.  We were docking to refuel and get supplies.  We could see Colombo in the distance and I couldn’t imagine the tour that I had signed up for was really in this area.  I had signed up to go to a tea plantation, high up in the mountains.  The pictures looked beautiful with green terracing fields.  We find it very enjoyable to see the countryside in other areas of the world.  Unfortunately, we won’t see this one.

We stood on Deck 5 and watched the authorities from Sri Lanka and officers from the ship, conduct business.  There were no people allowed onboard and each Officer that disembarked to dock area were wearing gloves and a mask.  They set up tents, hand sanitizer station and proceeded with business.  Two armed guards stood watch to make sure none of us disembarked.

The Cruise Director planned many activities on the pool deck this afternoon (Octoberfest in March, Harmony Choir – Live From Pool Deck and much more) and remember, the synchronized swimmers (Sri Lanka games).  As the afternoon progressed, the smog cleared out and the city looked very different.  There’s a tall tower that looks like a flower.  The tower part was green like a stem and the top was red.  It’s the Lotus Tower (1,150 ft tall).  The tallest self supporting tower in South Asia.  

We sat on deck and investigated the city by binoculars.  I could see a few Hilton Hotels, temples, gardens, towers, cargo ships and a few dogs wandering down to the dock to watch us.  Soon one of our officials took lunch out to the Sri Lanka official.  The man sat under the tent and had 2 cheeseburgers and fries.  Interesting.  He looked very happy eating his lunch as if this was something he would not be eating at home.  Hmmm….  The man finished his lunch, got into an old little car and drove away.  All was quiet for a few hours and then the little car returned to the dock.  Our ship had been refueled and supplies were now onboard.  We were just waiting for officials to clear the ship and seems they were taking their time.  Finally, the official cleared the ship and waved good-bye.  Off he went, but nobody was there to release the lines.  Soon we saw a van driving down the dock, dropping off 2 men at front and 2 more at end.  They released the lines and off we sailed. 

The sun began to go down and we were headed towards the Seychelles (somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit).  Soon the ship began to slow down, almost to a full stop.  We’ve been getting updates from the Captain and this time, it was what we had all been expecting.  Seychelles has closed the port.  One after another have closed borders due to this virus causing chaos around our world.  

We are awaiting news regarding our ‘mystery cruise’.  You never know where we’re going or where we will end up, but having a good time getting there!