Countdown to departure

With much less than a month to go before we board Aurora, we're already getting excited and trying to consider everything we'll need for 65 days away from home. You can't pack 65 pairs of undies and socks, but you can be ready to use on board laundry facilities by taking your own detergent. Equally, you do have to pack a range of clothes to accommodate everything from snow in Southampton to Equatorial heat and humidity, as well as yomping across the Falklands, pursued by penguins.

Similarly, we've learned that we're allowed to take a litre of wine or spirits each on board and, given the price of drink, that seems like a great idea.

However, our biggest headache to date is yellow fever vaccine. Brazil has apparently declared itself a Yellow Fever zone so we need to have the vaccine. We had it already in 2003 but thought that had expired and therefore we chucked the certificates. Big tip: don't do that. Vaccine longevity is changing all the time and Yellow Fever is a good example - it's now lifetime. So, we're now hunting to try and find where we had it and if they have any records ... all that time ago. All this not to mention ensuring all COVID info is ready to roll. And, talking of COVID, if after months of paying for this very expensive expedition, you catch COVID, you could be refused boarding.

There's much activity in buying up cosmetics and deodorants too - they're unlikely to be cheap on board ship so we may as well take what we need.

The key though for all of this is the Holiday List. It is long, complex and shared between us so that every time we think of something it goes on the list, to be checked off when it's sourced.