Silversea Water Cooler: Welcome! Part Two

[jpalbny]

Yes - looking forward to trying out the new cooktop. We actually went out for dinner last night because by the time I'd finished installing it, there wasn't really time to start cooking. Plus the meat that I'd taken out of the freezer yesterday morning wasn't thawed...

 

Good eye Jeff. There's a double ring burner in the center that has a max rating of 19K BTU. I have an attachment (a wok ring) that fits over the center grate to hold a round-bottom wok. I only have a flat-bottom wok so now I have to get a real one, I guess. :)

 

Nice prawns! And lamb, etc. Always fun to come here and get hungry.

[mysty]

Scrumptious! Everything looks so goooooood!

 

Favourite haunts being violated by haters and covered in the blood of innocents must be extremely difficult to watch. Debate rages here about our new Prime Minister's pledge to bring 25,000 refugees to Canada before Christmas. Many are cautioning that background and security checks are necessary while others are touting the humanitarian cry to take all. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail.

[Mark_K]

Scrumptious! Everything looks so goooooood!

 

Favourite haunts being violated by haters and covered in the blood of innocents must be extremely difficult to watch. Debate rages here about our new Prime Minister's pledge to bring 25,000 refugees to Canada before Christmas. Many are cautioning that background and security checks are necessary while others are touting the humanitarian cry to take all. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail.

 

 

Maybe he should aim for doing it by Ramadan.

[UKCruiseJeff]

Hi all,

 

M&M, in my view the key thing would have been for us to support Turkey by funding, setting up and securing safe UN magaged camps with highly secure entries and exits with a high degree of proetection and for housing of genuine refugees to be processed on arrival and housed until checks have been completed, fed watered, and from which we all could then take non economic migrants but genuine refugees for temporary resettlement until Syria has been stabilised - but only in batches once they have been checked out. This should be seen as temporary relief pending resettlement back in their own homeland once we sort out the mess we have created there so that it is not seen as a permanent home ... only a refuge.

 

Anyway.

 

JP, that burner sounds good .... my wok burner is used all the time but you must ensure you have a sufficiently beefed up extracter and not a domestic strength one. Don't mean to irritate by teaching grandma to suck eggs but if you have a chinatown close by then I suggest you look for one of their really cheaper giant steel woks that you need to pre-condition. They typically look like this and are exceptionally cheap. The conditioning makes them non-stick and you should then never put anything other than water near it to keep it cleaned. I regularly reseason it. It's also importnt to admit defeat occiasionally and only cook in small batches. As I am sure you know .... forgive me if you do .... but you only ever stir fry once you have heated the wok for a very long time.

 

 

Very envious of Soapy and her access presumably to Welsh lamb which is the very best in the UK. I so miss the really hard up days and when we were able to buy lamb breast which I boned and stuffed and rolled and we'd have it with almost free veg supplied by farmers who drunk in the same country village pub as us and would give us stuff in exchange for a pint. We'd see bags of carrots, and brussels and potatos resting against the car in the pub car park when we were off home. Real community stuff. The feeling of processing and freezing free veg for the freezer gives a lovely feeling of secuurity when we were really hard up.

 

The Welsh chops were so good last week that I bought some more and did a tandoori chop meal with samosas, fries ( yes ... I know .....) and a lightly pickled salad relish .. the chops were marinanded in the yoghurt tandoori mix for three days and then done to medium today.

 

Slightly out of focus ... apologies.

 

Jeff

 

Edited November 18, 2015 by UKCruiseJeff

[Mark_K]

Jeff,

 

Just my opinion, but I think there would be significantly less refugees if they all knew there was no prospect of ever becoming immigrants.

 

Mark

[mysty]

J...I agree with your take on what would have been the better approach to the influx of people (refugees and non). To my mind, people bent on killing and destruction will take advantage of whatever means available to get to their targets. There is no reason to believe otherwise. It is all well and good to try to believe in the basic goodness in people but when confronted with obviously evil intent, that faith goes right out the window.

[mysty]

Thanks Terry! I started to enter the information and got as far as the end of January 2016 when I got the message that the "trip limit" had been reached. I have emailed Foreign Affairs to ask how to go about entering the data for the other 3 months. :( Their system is really not designed to handle this kind of adventure.

Quick update - I got an email response to my "cry for help" in adding the rest of the ports onto our registration. They advised me to send them the list of additional ports and dates and they would add them to our registration. :) Pretty speedy response, considering. Email sent and one more box ticked on my massive "to do" list. :)

[Mark_K]

J...I agree with your take on what would have been the better approach to the influx of people (refugees and non). To my mind, people bent on killing and destruction will take advantage of whatever means available to get to their targets. There is no reason to believe otherwise. It is all well and good to try to believe in the basic goodness in people but when confronted with obviously evil intent, that faith goes right out the window.

 

 

The security problem with 8 million refugees is that even if 99% of them are nice people, that leaves 80,000 bad apples. And even if you successfully vet 99% of the bad ones, you still let in 800 terrorists.

[Mark_K]

The current view to the east from our house ...

 

[mysty]

Beautiful rainbow Mark! And I agree with your analysis. Unfortunately it seems we may be forging ahead with the plan and it is not obvious as to whether any kind of checks will be done beforehand. :(

[Mark_K]

Beautiful rainbow Mark! And I agree with your analysis. Unfortunately it seems we may be forging ahead with the plan and it is not obvious as to whether any kind of checks will be done beforehand. :(

 

 

If I have my geography right, you live somewhere over the rainbow. :)

[mysty]

You are such a wit Mark! I do live over the rainbow. :) Northeast of you!

[UKCruiseJeff]

Good Morning Campers ..... to a grey and damp morning here in Blighty!

 

I see Donato has cropped up in another thread again. We have had one or two discussions about Mr D in the past on the SS forum! It always seemed to me that no one at SS was more appropriately named ie ...."Donated ..... given ....." The best service a passenger can buy! :eek:

 

;):D

 

Today is a walk followed by chicken in breadcrumbs ....

 

Jeff

[Nigella]

Just quickly checking in. I can't pretend that I'll have time to catch up the thread but Jeff, the Waitrose chicken was lovely. Very succulent and tasty. Thank you for the recommendation. Will definitely buy again when I'm here.

 

I'm back in England for a few days and from the distance, I'm filled with admiration and pride in how my host country is dealing with the horrific events of the past week.

[mysty]

Mark...Is it 5 days and counting for you? Excitement building? :)

[Mark_K]

Mark...Is it 5 days and counting for you? Excitement building? :)

 

 

Yes, excitement is building. 5 days until the cruise starts, but only 3 days until we leave home. Sunday afternoon we leave to go to our daughter's house near Detroit for an early Monday morning DTW-FLL flight. Then we're spending Monday afternoon/night in Ft Lauderdale.

[UKCruiseJeff]

Yes, excitement is building. 5 days until the cruise starts, but only 3 days until we leave home. Sunday afternoon we leave to go to our daughter's house near Detroit for an early Monday morning DTW-FLL flight. Then we're spending Monday afternoon/night in Ft Lauderdale.

 

 

That's lovely.

 

Thank gawd that as we get older we never lose the sense of excitement and anticipation!

 

You'll be dusting off those cases and getting out that formal gear from the mothballs and dusting off your tiara in no time!

 

Really hope you have an exceptional trip.

 

:)

 

Jeff

[mysty]

Yes, excitement is building. 5 days until the cruise starts, but only 3 days until we leave home. Sunday afternoon we leave to go to our daughter's house near Detroit for an early Monday morning DTW-FLL flight. Then we're spending Monday afternoon/night in Ft Lauderdale.

Have a great trip Mark! And maybe take some jewel cleaner to the tiara. Dusting will not make the gems sparkle. :)

[jpalbny]

Mark, Safe travels! Have a great time.

 

Jeff, when I stop getting excited to plan trips and to go on them, it'll be time to quit. Hope that never happens!

[spinnaker2]

Stormy weather tonight.

Enjoying it all.

Mark, should we great for you!

[specialcruisegirl]

Bon Voyage Mark....hope you have a wonderful voyage.....my advice for cleaning the jewels would be to soak them in spirits...gin works well for me! [emoji6]

 

Nice to have a bit of rough Spin....l personally love it but do feel for those who suffer....hopefully it will be a smooth sailing into Lauderdale for you all.

 

Always love the build up to any trip....am already planning for the April crossing!!

 

It appears that we have snow on the horizon here in Blighty this weekend...that will for sure place local councils into panic mode! I'm well stocked up so will endure the cold front cuddling up beside pup...[emoji16]

 

Happy Weekend

Sophia [emoji4]

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[spinnaker2]

Morning.

What a fun night for me.

Lots of bouncing of the boat.

best of all, DH survived the wave motion, no mal de mer.

 

At breakfast this am heard many crew unable to sleep due to noise level of ship getting through the waves.

 

The sun is out now. Hope the sea motion will minimize for those who need rest.

 

Not looking forward to the cruise ending, but DH already talking about the dogs.

He is getting to the "enough" stage.

 

Enjoy the day all!

[jpalbny]

spinnaker2, glad you're enjoying yourself. I don't think we could last that many days in a row without a port of call. That's why we haven't tried a crossing yet, and I don't think it's in the works anytime soon. We like to vacation at least as hard as we work, preferably harder, so relaxing is generally taboo... ;)

 

Once on a North Atlantic cruise, we left Greenland and had 2 sea days, then couldn't land at St. John's. So it ended up being 4 straight sea days. That was too much! We were so ready to get off the boat at the next port.

Edited November 20, 2015 by jpalbny

[spinnaker2]

JP, I totally understand the drive to vacation. That's why we like expeditions cruising.

I think I am still somewhat exhausted from being on 24 hour nurse practitioner call for the elderly dog day after day. She isn't ready to go anywhere but needs the attention. I know many will think that weird, as she's is a dog, but she gave so much in her lifetime, selflessly and unconditionally, it's time to give back.

I just needed this break from that responsibility.

[Mark_K]

And the fun begins ...