At daybreak this morning we were still working our way northwestwards off the coast of Baja California.
By mid-afternoon we still had some 260 miles to go to reach Los Angeles.
This morning we took the opportunity to watch a cookery demonstration by the Executive Chef Antonio Constantino assisted by the Maitre d’Hotel Giuseppe Castino.
This was followed by a tour of the Galley. Everyday a grand total of 385 crew members, including 179 waiters and stewards in the dining rooms, prepare and provide the wonderful food that we have eaten three times a day whilst we have been on board. Each dish is hand made from the 180 tons of food loaded onto the ship before departure. This food is kept in cold rooms which maintain the temperature at +2C unlike a home refrigerator the doors are only occasionally opened and so the temperature remains constant so that the food and ingredients will last the voyage. Pasta, pizza and bread are cooked freshly each day. We saw the massive and spotlessly clean preparation and cooking areas, in fact we saw the carrots that were available to eat as part of the salad only 30 minutes later. The statistics of food preparation is amazing. 700 kilos of fish, 1600 kilos of meat and 4 tons of vegetables are cooked each day. It takes 28 gallons of detergent a day to wash all the crockery and utensils used.
Tomorrow upon arrival everything that has not been used, apart from the alcohol, will be offloaded and replaced with fresh food for the next voyage. They will have to replace the Cotes du Rhone as we had the last bottle 3 days ago!!
After lunch we went on deck for a short time and just before we left we saw 2 whales, probably Minke, off the stern of the ship, but out of camera range.
We have just returned from our final evening meal where Baked Alaskas were paraded around the restaurant and everyone the friends made on the cruise.
