DAY-26: It's Pi Day & We've Turned Around

DAY-26:  It's Pi Day & We've Turned Around

Day – 26: Saturday, March 14, 2020

Starting Location: At Sea Aboard the M.S. Marina
Interim Location: Pisco, Peru (Scheduled)
Ending Location: At Sea Aboard the M.S. Marina

Good news, we survived Friday, the 13th! 

Now we can get on with celebrating Pi Day ...

Pi = 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781

But not so fast, one of the first things I typically do each morning is take a look at the ship's track from overnight. We had been scheduled to dock in Pisco, Peru at 7 AM but at 6:30 AM the track showed that we had cruised past the turn to Pisco.  
(Map Legend: Arrow = Ship's Position, Pisco is to the southeast, lower left, and we are headed north, that is either the wrong way or really long way to get there.)

Around 7:30 AM realizing that most of us could feel that the ship was leaning into a port turn the Captain made an announcement that the ship was in fact turning around.

There are several assumptions one could make about the reason for the order "CORPEN-PORT-18" or for ye landlubbers, a U-Turn to the left:

• Someone on the bridge (ship's conning station, not the card game) had realized the mistake and we were headed back to Pisco
• Someone or something had fallen overboard and we were turning to begin a search (GOOD NEWS: No missing person reports)
• We were headed to a different port, not unusual if weather or other conditions inhibit entry into the scheduled port

What the Captain then told us was that overnight the government of Peru, concerned about the spread of the COVID virus, had closed its ports to cruise ships resulting in our ship being without a place to go. We had continued past Pisco in a northerly direction awaiting direction from the Oceania home office. By morning arrangements had been made and the ship was directed to return to San Antonio, Chile which would then become our debarkation port; we would then return home from Santiago, Chile instead of Lima, Peru. It would take two days to get to San Antonio so we would now disembark on Monday, one day late. With that news we changed our flight reservations, allowing for a couple of days in Santiago (Sheila had never been there) with our return to St. Pete Beach as long planned on Wednesday, March 18th. 

We then sat back and resumed our typical daily routine prepared to enjoy a couple more sea days, including one that would technically be "free".

Later in the morning we passed a huge fishing fleet, there were hundreds of small and medium size boats, the fish didn't have a chance.

Being that today was meant to be in port, the daily schedule had little in the way of entertainment, but change comes quickly and soon the cards were being dealt with the bridge players at their game. As usual, the walking deck was open. By mid-afternoon an enrichment lecture had been scheduled by Dr. Kus, the topic being "Five Decades in Latin America". He indicated that he always had extra lectures prepared for just such circumstances, so at least someone was prepared.

Dinner tonight was with a crowd, we had a table for eight in the Polo Grill, including six who favored Navy and two who favored Notre Dame in the upcoming football game in Dublin scheduled for August 29th; plans are to meet again in Dublin five months from now.

By early evening we were south of Pisco en-route to San Antonio but change was again in the offing. Around midnight we reversed course "CORPEN-STARBOARD-18" and were again headed north. 

Had the Peruvian ports been reopened?