Holy Lands Cruise - Why we are on it.

Today was a sea day which is our recovery day from our travels. We both slept great last night - a solid 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep! 

Our lectures started today. The first was by Rev Phillip Ruge-Jones and his wife, Laurie.  They specialize in dramatically telling Bible stories.  Laurie told the story of the conversion of Paul from Acts 9, then Phillip lead a discussion about it and asked for our reactions.   Later in the cruise he plans to tell stories from the Gospel of Mark. 

At 2 pm, Dr Paul L. Maier gave his first lecture.  Dr Maier is a professor emeritus, having taught 50 years at Western Michigan University, and is the real reason we are on this cruise.  His expertise in Biblical archeology and recommendations from friends who had toured Israel with him convinced us to sign up.  He lectured for 55 minutes (without any notes) about how visiting Biblical sites gives a different perspective on Bible stories and how current archeological findings are supporting more and more of the Bible. When he started to wrap up I checked the time and could not believe nearly an hour had passed.

Travel wise, it was vey windy and stormy today.  The highlight was when we passed through the Straits of Messina, a narrow waterway that separates mainland Italy from the island of Sicily.  Having never seen this island, we enjoyed being so close. 

This evening after dinner with other travelers in our group, we met two of the ships' officers.  The staff captain and maitre'd were glad to pose with our travel animal, who came to us for great-nephew Jacob Boyer's 2nd grade class' geography project.  The little duck is on his way to becoming well-traveled indeed!