Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

This week, Cheri Lucas Rowlands challenges us to took down and document the world beneath our feet. You can view the entire challenge post here. Looking down, I see an ocean of tropical fish. Could the carpet have a meaning? As it turns out… it does.

We were on the cruise ship Norwegian Pearl, on our way to Los Angeles via the Panama Canal. The Pearl supports a small town-sized population of over 3000 guests and crew. With 10 decks for passengers, and forward, aft and mid-ship elevators, it’s easy to lose one’s sense of direction and head the wrong way, only to discover when you reached one end of the ship that you meant to go in the other direction. After discovering, yet again, we were going the wrong direction, I uttered a frustrated, “Wrong way again”, to my wife, Lynn.

From behind us, a couple we had been coming toward, was now walking behind us in our direction. The gentleman said simply, “The fish are swimming toward the front of the ship.” At first, the zen comment didn’t mean anything to me, not even realizing he was talking to us. Then I realized he was talking about the fish on the carpet. Indeed, they are all swimming in the same direction, and it is forward, toward the ship’s bow. If only I had realized this a few days earlier, it would have saved us a lot of extra walking. On the bright side, we got some extra exercise.

Mid-ship deck 8, a small restaurant serves a simple menu for a cruise ship, and a variety of coffees. The Blue Lagoon’s carpet has a coffee bean motif.

We enjoyed our stay on the Pearl so much that our next cruise was also on the Pearl. We have sailed on the Pearl from Miami, Florida to Juneau, Alaska, via Colombia, the Panama Canal, Costa Rica and Mexico; skipping only the west coast between Los Angeles and Seattle.

You can read about our time on the Pearl here.

John Steiner