F&N Daily, December 21

One entry today.

Spoilers have arrived at the solstice

A letter from Susan to Kit because, "If I am killed, you should know about the things I've done in the last day, because, admit it, it would drive you insane not to know."

This is where James's letter of yesterday comes in—Sir George shows it to Susan. Who has enlisted Thomas Cavanaugh to get James out of the country if he lives, and who admits to him that she is pregnant with James's child. And the reread has made me pay attention to dates: it has been two weeks, which makes it very plot-convenient that she already has morning sickness, let alone know that she is pregnant. People on another forum pointed out that it's hard to believe that this is how she breaks the news to Kit, as well, which I think is very fair.

One entry tomorrow, when my vacation is over!

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Cruise blogging

In what remains a somewhat unbelievable turn of events, Chad was recruited to sing for his supper (give lectures) on a cruise line, guest included—that would be me, thanks to his parents, who were so amazingly generous as to come stay with the kids. So I am sitting in BWI after an 11-day cruise to the "Leeward Islands" of the Caribbean, attempting to do a very fast summary, because I'm diving right back into everything when we get home and if I don't do it now, I never will.

Cut for length

We were on the Seabourn Sojourn, which has a capacity of 458 passengers (we were told there were 400 on board); all the cruises we've done before have been on much bigger ships. It was definitely very nice to have basically no lines for anything. And the food and service was extremely good, as would be expected for an "ultra-luxury" line! (The Disney cruise, however, matched it in service.) They'd laid off 90% of their hotel staff in 2020 and only started running cruises again in June of this year, so there were some very small ways in which I saw the rust, but only because of what I was expecting, you know? The size meant that we did feel the motion of the ship more, especially a few days when there were significant swells in the Atlantic, but fortunately I did not get motion-sick, which was a surprise because I did on our last cruise (to Bermuda out of NYC, which I don't think I ever wrote up here). We had the option to sit with other people in the main restaurant and did that twice, once to better results than the other, and also Chad, as one of the "guest conversationalists," hosted dinner four nights, so we got to meet a bunch of nice people that way.

We had two days at sea on the way down and two days on the way back. Between those and long afternoons (dinner did not start until 7), I read so much—I hope to do a fast post about that too. That alone was worth it to me, I'll be honest.

Anyway, our ports of call. I have a few pictures from these and will try to upload them to Tumblr and link back when I'm home, since that can be done more piecemeal.

San Juan: headed for the older fort, Castillo San Felipe del Morro. Along the way visited the Catedral Basílica Metropolitana de San Juan Bautista, which had a bunch of lovely art and the most amazingly bored-looking Saint Sebastian; a pigeon feeding park; and a park with a street cat refuge (Parque de Los Gatos!) and cool trees. The fort was neat, great views and I enjoyed the layers of history. We had lunch nearby at El Patio De Sam: amazing fried balls of homemade cheese on the appetizer menu. Then to a book museum we'd seen on the way up, La Casa del Libro Museum, where a slightly nervous and very enthusiastic staff member explained that their rare books and manuscripts were in a vault because they just finished an exhibition; but they were showing works of an artist, Imna Arroyo Cora, which were interesting. Then we were taking the long way back to the ship and saw Castillo San Cristobal right there, so we went up: it was not as interesting, and I don't think that was only because we did other one first. It was very hot and a lot of walking, but satisfying, especially after two days at sea.

Our next stop was supposed to be Saint Barthélemy, but the seas were such that we couldn't safely tender in, so we went to Phillipsburg in Saint-Martin instead. I'm afraid that is filled with lowest-common-denominator tourist shops, so we walked around for a little bit to establish that yes, it was all shops, and then had a somewhat incongruous lunch at a place with a windmill on top (Dutch Blonde Beach Bar & Restaurant, this being the Dutch side of the island) because Chad wanted local beer, and where I discovered that little puffy pancakes called poffertjes were good. (We'd heard that people could get really hung up in traffic coming back from the French side of the island, and I'm really prone to carsickness so prefer not to be driven in tourist destinations, so we did not try to go elsewhere.)

Then to Terre-de-Haut Island, Guadelope, which was very enjoyable: we walked up to Fort Napoléon des Saintes, which made us feel very virtuous because it was, of course, hot, and the road was pretty steep in places, but we got to enjoy the scenery along the way and work off some of the meals we'd been having. The fort has an amazing succulent garden, extremely beautiful and well-designed and maintained, and a museum that's all in French; as I had no data, I couldn't Google Lens translate any of it, but I was able to appreciate enough from context. Then we walked down and found a restaurant on a different beach than we'd tendered into called La Paillote, where we had perfectly good fish-based food.

In Antigua we did a "reef snorkel and beach trip" excursion; the snorkeling was just fine, the beach was nice, and we were only delayed a little when the catamaran needed to go pick up a mechanic and repair one of its engines.

Much better snorkeling out of St. Kitts; Chad had a GoPro to take pictures and I'm getting something for that purpose next time we snorkel, because it's so frustrating to try and describe things after the fact! Saw some giant parrotfish, a trumpetfish, a white boxfish with black spots, and several schools of fish. Then we spent the afternoon on "Carambola Beach," which is a private facility that the cruise had rented out, so did not set foot in a town at all.

...nor the last day, really, which was at Jos Van Dyke in British Virgin Islands: we tendered into one beach with bars and restaurants, and the cruise ran a shuttle to another beach with bars and restaurants. We did not realize that we would not be setting foot in someplace with shopping on the final two days, and therefore had not done the really exhaustive souvenir shopping that we should have. Oops. (The kids have presents, but we hadn't seen anything as a thank-you for Chad's folks.) Anyway, I slept until 11 that day because we'd had very heavy swells overnight and, it turns out, I can't sleep on even a small and slow roller-coaster; I went over and met Chad in time to watch the second half of the World Cup final at a restaurant called Foxy's. Back on the ship I was near some people who were watching the penalty kicks by video-calling their daughter in England so they could see her TV! (They were very happy when France lost.)

And that's all, barring the books! Chad will undoubtedly also write it up and I'll link that here too, along with pictures when I can.

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Cruise booklogging

My booklog needs a complete WordPress reinstall and possibly some more stuff as well, so in the meantime, I present: all the books I read on an 11-day Caribbean cruise.

1) A Restless Truth, Freya Marske. Set on an ocean liner! Lovely: fun, quick, great characters (I am especially fond of the one who's got all the skills to be awful but has emphatically committed herself, with all of her iron will, to be good) and excellent romantic dynamic.

2) Ocean's Echo, Everina Maxwell. The ocean is metaphorical, but it still counts. Rhymes well with the prior book in the main characters; nicely id-tastic relationship dynamic (we'll fake a soul-bond to keep from being forced to it). I got a smidge lost in the politics and reversals by the end but that may well have been my fault, and on the whole I enjoyed it immensely.

3) Moby Dick, Herman Melville. The ocean is literal and metaphorical! Yes, I read the whole thing. Though Ishmael's sentences take some concentration, this did not feel that long to me, honestly. I would like to say that the book's many non-white characters rise above being Noble Savages but I can't really convince myself of it. At least it wasn't being intentionally malicious, so I could shrug past it. And on the whole I enjoyed it quite a lot and look forward to rereading it more closely with Whale Weekly (which is quite busy at the moment as Ishmael gets ready to sail, but will settle down after that).

SPOILERS for Moby Dick

I was briefly disappointed that the mutiny that I seemed to have been promised did not materialize, but of course that's the point. And I personally believe that the whale does not die; certainly it doesn't on-screen, so I suppose you could think whatever you like, but again, I think it's the point that it doesn't.

4) Dead Collections, Isaac Fellman. Decided I needed an emphatic break from the ocean theme, having gorged myself on it with Moby Dick. This is a short book (60k, so a novel by Hugo standards, but) that I respected more than liked. It's very tight and thematically-intertwined, but it almost seemed too much so to me.

5) Illuminations, T. Kingfisher. Her most recent middle-grade book. Enjoyable until the end when I abruptly wanted it to be a different genre, which is her second book in a row like that.

SPOILERS for Illuminations

They should have burnt the Scarling rather than imprison it again, they're just carrying on the ancestor's sin. The characters or author could have come up with a way to save the crow, if that would have been a step too far for a kid's book.

6) The Border Keeper, Kerstin Hall. Another short one (54k). I reread something for a Yuletide beta that was kind of gently and numinously magical, and wanted something in the same vein. This fit the mood (though less on the gentle end) and was well-written and evocative, but maybe a little sparse, especially when I hit the end and went "wait, what?"

7) Travel Light, Naomi Mitchison. A true novella (37k). Just a lovely, unusual story about a girl that starts as a fairy tale and moves into historical times but stays with the same kind of considerations.

8) The Corn King and the Spring Queen, also Mitchison. My flight is being called so I'll just say that this is a brick (270k) but excellent historical/fantasy, really good at the mindsets of the characters, highly recommended.

Edit:

I finished the above on the first leg of our flights today, not technically on the cruise, so in that spirit I'll add in

9) The Empress of Salt and Fortune, Nghi Vo. Novella started on one flight and finished on other (I'm waiting for luggage now). A cleric and their talking bird hear the story of the title character, satisfyingly done, little tension (not a complaint).

You can do spoilers in comments by using HTML mode and using (details)(summary)cut text(/summary)(/details), only replace with pointy brackets.

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