Brain freeze

This is a sea day. It is very hot out now and very calm. I am sure you have heard of the Ship of Fools. Well, this is the Bananas Boat.

I told you about the comedian, a couple of days ago, that roasted the captain on his birthday. I didn’t go into a lot of detail at that time. The guys name is Kenny Smiles. Among other things he did was mock the way the captain talked. He said he could talk Norwegian too, and then would say things like herdy, gerdy, verdy.

In his roast he had the captain come up and help with a magic act. He appointed the captain, Dag, to be the wizard. He put this very tall wizard hat on Dag and tied it under his chin. Then when Dag couldn’t see, he removed the hat revealing a bathroom plunger that had been under the hat and was now tied to dag’s head.

Today, at about 3:30 PM an announcement came over the public address and into the suites. The captain said he had enough of this Kenny Smiles. A friend of his that was the captain of a refrigerator ship was going to trade him for a sack of Norwegian fish. At about 4:00 PM we would meet and make a transfer at sea.

There are two small orange boats, with outboard motors, on the ship. One is directly below our suite. We saw them putting gas in this boat and getting it ready to launch. Suddenly a huge orange freighter appeared on our stern. (Rear). We had slowed to a crawl and it quickly caught up to us.

Kenny comes out and goes up to the outboard. He is wearing the plunger tied to his head. They got him into the outboard and launched the boat.

Now the Norwegian freighter is about two blocks ahead of us. It had taken about a mile for the ship to stop after it shut down its props. The small boat with Kenny and our other outboard were on their way to the freighter. Our ship now turned and came toward the freighter. As we approached the orange refrigerated freighter, our loudspeakers began playing real cool music very loudly and it really sounded good. Songs like Sail Away and Jimmy Buffet’s Sailor Man. Everyone from our ship was up to the rails as were the crew members of the other ship. All were waving to one another. Then we see the outboards coming back.

It seems the captain of the freighter changed his mind. He decided Kenny was not worth a sack of fish and he was being sent back. The little boats paraded up and back between the two ships which were now side by side and very close. All the while Kenny was wearing the plunger on his head. Next the ships started blowing their horns. Bobbi loves that. Says it sounds like giant whales talking to one another. I wonder if maybe all Norwegians are nuts. Maybe its brain freeze from living so far north? All this just for some shtick. Big Shtick.

They finally brought the outboards back up on the ship. As the davits that held the small boat were just under our suite, I was able to talk to Kenny from my balcony. I asked him things like, did you know you were not worth a sack of fish? And where’s the herdy, gerdy, verdy, now. He replied he was unacceptable and they sent him back.

It was a lot of fun and who thought you could get two captains of huge ships to stop and do this clowning. It is a story no one else I know of can tell.

Tonight we were invited over to the Kapels for appetizers before dinner. Unbelievable what their butler brought. Chicken wings. Quiche, cheese platter, shrimp, cheese role puffs, smoked salmon, caviar, with all the sides like onions, chopped eggs, sour cream, crackers of many kinds, and I know I forgot some things. There was enough for at least a dozen hungry people and most of it was left.

It was another fun day with great hot weather.

Great Hot Sherm out.

PS HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

PPS We need recipes for Passover. We are going to have the chef make us stuff. Please send us some you know to be good. Thanks

(Posted on behalf of Sherman Rootberg)