The end of the world

Gabrielle and Nick at the End of the World

Once in our finery, we minced off to The Glass House. We were ooooohhhhhhed and arrrrrrrrrhhhhhed over with lots of questions from Janice if all had been ok on our last visit as she had not seen us since our renewal of vows evening and had everything been ok? We had to assure her that all had been more than ok, it was simply that we were desperately trying to keep the alcohol intake to a reasonable level. And failing fairly spectacularly, it has to be said.

Exciting news, albatrosses, lectures and upcoming Celebration Night

We begin today’s post with very exciting news to share: Captain Love has invited us to visit him on the bridge on 6 February at 11:30am. This means that we shall have a chance to see everything that goes on there and witness his 12pm “Captain Ting-Ting” message to the entire ship. Apart from the fact that he’s invited us, he’s a really very nice guy who has a warm and friendly manner. He’s from Sherborne in Dorset so we already have a connection.

Another emotional trip

The whalebone arch outside Port Stanley Cathedral

The further south we trundled, the cooler it was getting. The sun was still very much with us though, with a lovely sunset and lights finally fading around 9.30 last night.

As mentioned, we’ve really struggled with The Falklands stop, as what we’d like to do, we can’t, and what we can do, felt, quite frankly, rather tame. Initially, we booked to do the Panoramic Stanley Highlights tour. A safe bet, on a coach. Then once we acknowledged that my hip issue was seriously improving, we made valiant efforts to change our tour for something a little more exciting. By then, most other tours were sold out and we finally decided to change to a farm tour. It seemed informative and intimate, with only a small number of guests allowed.

On board Aurora: its crew and its entertainment

Phew! Managed to grab a morsel of Internet. It's in short supply down here as there's not much demand among the penguins. Gabrielle has decided she likes being called ma’am, as in ham (not marm as in farm). The unfailing politeness and friendliness of the staff is testament to great training and quality recruitment. They seem largely to be drawn from the Indian subcontinent, Malaysia and Philippines. 

Asteroid, Argentina, yachting and a BMR, with a diversion about food

Once we left Montevideo behind, to a beautiful sunset, it was something of a relief that the wind picked up, bringing with it cooler temperatures. It was lovely to have a bath after the heat of Montevideo. As we were both still full after our lunch extravaganza, we just had an apple in the evening and gave going out, a miss.

We’ve been well and truly tangoed!

Last night’s tango was completely unexpected in terms of what we got: a keyboard player and an accordionist provided the dramatic music while our main man was a Latin singer of considerable presence and gusto and with an amazing voice. Considering he had no English, he commanded the full to busting theatre - 600 capacity, so nearly half the ship. He sang beautiful songs in Spanish and from time to time, dancers floated on stage to do their tango thing. Utterly stunning and captivating, the evening was over in a flash. Unfortunately, where we were sitting was not optimal for photos, so you'll need to imagine it! (The headline photo is from the Spinoglio Winery.)

Another certificate, Sindhu celebration and a slow Montevideo walk

We had been instructed by Janice, our delightful server in The Glass House that we must call by for a drink before we went to Sindhu, so she could see my dress. We got chatting, as we have each time we’ve seen her, and I enquired about her name. She certainly doesn’t look like a Janice. She laughed and said that when she was born, her dad had been watching a film with a Janice in it and that, as they say, is history. Feeling it wise to stick with the pop, we continued our celebrations with a lovely glass of Taittinger. 

Pictures from our Renewal of Vows ceremony on 24 January 2023

Here is a selection of the pics from our ceremony, all taken by the lovely Princess. We had an amazing day!

Today’s the day. Tonight’s the night!

This post is jointly written by Gabrielle and Nick. There will be another post tomorrow with all the pics!

The plan for last night was to go to The Glass House for a small pop and then go for dinner and have a glass of wine and an early night. You know when you have a plan and it goes out of the window? That was us last night. 

All at sea with extreme ironing

A sea day today, so the morning dawned bright and early - around 7:30am, which is astonishingly early for us when we don’t have to get up - and we planned our activities. The day began with Gabrielle doing her exercises and me ensuring that Amy (her Personal Trainer) was aware that it was happening. Given the lack of equipment for this workout, Gabrielle resorted to two 500ml tins of water as weights and waved them around with determination and to great effect. As she normally uses two 5kg weights, this is rather letting her off easily!

The city of the butt-lift, micro trunks and red lights

It has to be said, what we’re doing here, is a trip of a lifetime. So to that extent, we’re doing everything we can to max out on our experiences. We’ve actively chosen to do the trips rather than go it alone for a number of reasons. The main one being, you can’t get a better experience than from a knowledgeable, enthusiastic guide. They know the ropes, they know the shortcuts, they know the safe spots and the dodgy spots to avoid. We’re in these cities for such a short space of time, we really don’t want to make it up and get it wrong.

River January and Corcovado Tour. See there is a god!

There was an early start (for some) today as we hove into Rio de Janiero at around 5:30am. Gabrielle wanted to be out there to witness the glory of Corcovado Mountain and Sugarloaf whereas I felt that she'd probably be on her own. How wrong was I? Around 6am I felt lonely without my playmate, threw on some clothes and went in search of her, witnessing at the same time the fabulous skyline and impressive geography of the location, mistakenly named River January by its original discoverers.

Cabo Frio, swimming and drink

Hark at me. Another alcohol-free night last night. This won’t last. Jai McDowell wasn’t what I expected. Maybe times have moved on since 2011 when he won BGT, but he definitely wasn’t my sort of performer. Little character, no flair and fairly dull songs. To be fair to him, he had a harder audience than I think he was expecting. So maybe the majority of the audience was in our position and hadn’t heard of him either and had expected to be wowed. We weren’t.

Astonishing, poor Internet and a great presenter

Last night’s “Astonishing” show lived up to its name. A blend of magical illusions, song and dance, it packed a lot of oohs and aahs into around 40 minutes. The enthusiastic troupe of singers and dancers leapt, danced and magicked their way around the stage and we left feeling that we had had our money’s worth.

Certificates

It was a non-alcohol night last night. Yes, this is worthy of note. We were both really tired and just wanted to have our evening meal and collapse in a heap. Why so tired? We’d not exactly done much. OK, a workout (for me), walking the deck as usual and going on a trip which involved a fair amount of sitting on a coach. However, the humidity and heat of Recife were quite draining. The best we managed after dinner was a stroll on the top deck to catch the breeze. None of the evening entertainment particularly appealed.

South America landfall at Recife

Gabrielle was eager to get on the bus!

We docked at Recife around 7am local time. It’s a city of some 4 million inhabitants, the capital of the Pernambuco state of Brazil and is referred to as “The Venice of Brazil” because of its many rivers and waterways. It’s close to the easternmost point of South America … and, yes, I have been checking up on Google. However, our initial view was of the breakwater and dirty brown sea with floating detritus. Not the best welcome for our first landfall in South America. What was I expecting? Inca temples? Mayan ruins. Wrong country and wrong location, Nick!

Crossing the line, Initiation Ceremony and Boobies

After the stuntman and Nell Gwynn impersonator husband and wife team, I was feeling a little less than impressed with P&O’s choice in entertainment. Apart from anything else, I couldn’t help but wonder what their pillow talk was going to be like. So it has to be said that when we headed off for prinks last night in pursuit of the violinist, Tom Suha, it was with a certain amount of trepidation. I like a well-played violin and am happy with classical or Ceilidh.

In the Doldrums

Overnight, we have come into a belt of tropical weather called the Tropical Convergence Zone where weather systems from two hemispheres begin to meet. Typically, this can mean squally weather and rain or total calm - hence its other name: The Doldrums. As you can see, Gabrielle is less than impressed with the rainfall! However, it’s a warm 27 degrees and quite humid on board ship.

Change of itinerary and stowaway on board

Since our departure from Cape Verde Islands to noon today, we’ve travelled a distance of 357 nautical miles. When we set off yesterday, we noticed we were “clogging” along. The previous couple of days’ sedate speed seemed to change quite noticeably. Our average speed now is 19.8 knots. We’ve got 1248 nautical miles before we reach our next port of call. Today is a rather humid 25 degrees.

Out of our comfort zone

Mindelo in the Cape Verde Islands dawned bright and clear when we woke at 6:30am in order to get ready for a full-day exploration of the town and the island. We instantly had memories of the Azores when we saw jagged volcanic peaks, blasted by explosions and sticking up like teeth stabbing at the sky. Much more barren than the Azores, this island sits next to its partner which is a green and pleasant land, probably owing to higher and wider mountain ranges affecting the weather systems.

Night breezes, Steevan and flying fish

From noon yesterday to noon today we have travelled 338 nautical miles at an average speed of 14 knots. It’s a little bit waggy right now with a 2 to 3-metre swell, but thankfully we’re going slowly and there’s no need for my wristbands. We’ve got 268 nautical miles to go to our next stop, Mindelo, Cape Verde. It’s a bank holiday in Cape Verde tomorrow so I have no idea if this means it’ll be deathly quiet or buzzing. We’ll see. What I do know is that we get an extra hour in bed, which is just as well as our trip sets off at 8.30 tomorrow. 

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Sunshine, Buck's Fizz and weird technology

There are times when you meet a celebrity that you suddenly realise how often they have featured in your life over the years. This was very much true of Cheryl Baker who was a guest speaker on the cruise. You'll recall her as one of the foursome, Buck's Fizz, who made their name by winning Eurovision with "Making Your Mind Up" and were then tragically in the news when their coach was involved in a serious accident.

Whales, dolphins and errm a naturist.

See, that caught your attention now didn't it? But before I get on to today's events. More on last night. We were invited to the obligatory Captain's welcome party. Sounds grand? It's not. It's a bit of a bun fight...or Champagne fight to be more precise and very little happens. The world and her husband get frocked up, join a long queue, smile sweetly to the senior bridge team, get a glass of pop and mingle. The Captain has some words and everyone trots off again.

It emerges ...

After the long dark night of the soul, we have emerged into the sunlit uplands at 19 degrees C and a slow swell with a lower wind. We have the door of our cabin open onto the balcony and the sun is shining. We've just completed an energetic walk of over two miles around the Promenade Deck, knocking over grannies as we powered along. 

Having a "swell" time

I am, of course, desperately trying to cling on to the bright side and my bright side is, that my (one) soup, stayed down last night. Result! The other bright side is that I had an epic night's sleep of 6 hours, which is awesome for me under normal circumstances, but in these conditions is remarkable.

As we hunkered down last night, there was a murmur next to me; "I wasn't expecting to wear a seat belt in bed". Under normal circumstances, I am a lie-on-the-edge-of-the-bed sleeper. However, that sleeping style would have seen me swiftly evicted from the bed.

As the storm grows stronger

We made it to dinner ... just, because as the afternoon progressed so the waves got higher. At the time of writing this (20:15 UK) the ship is heeling from side to side and there are many things on the move. The latest has been a drawer in the next door cabin which is repeatedly opening and closing. We're hoping that the occupants are not night owls!

We were warned

Captain Love (yes really, this is not the dodgy theatrical name for a Captain in a 70's cruise drama, but our actual Captain) did his fun facts announcement at midday. Now because I wasn't really prepared for it, I felt rather bombarded with information. 280 ish nautical miles already covered, 1200 ish to go to our first stop, we are suffering the dregs of a force 12 storm from Ireland, we are now 'enjoying' a force 8, our waves are 5 metres high and rising this evening. I think all of that is correct.

A night and a morning

Those dreamy illusions of sipping cocktails as the ship glides across the glassy sea were rudely shattered by rough seas as soon as we rounded Ventnor on the Isle of Wight. All night the boat has pitched and tossed its way to the west coast of France and is even now heaving its way South.

We're in!

Somehow we have made it on board. Our first huge thanks go to Nick and Sue for bringing us to the ship. Not a bat of an eyelid as we produced yet one more suitcase. Blimey, there are a lot of suitcases for this trip. But the porter who took our suitcases away for us, was delighted to tell us that we weren't the most excessive. He'd come across a couple who had needed 3 trollies for all their suitcases. Sorry reader, we only needed one! Pathetic.

Packing and testing

It's just not feasible to pack for 65 nights, but equally, you can't take just a few clothes for a couple of weeks. We're passing through time zones, two tropics and one equator, ending up in similar weather conditions to home when we reach the Falkands. So, it's layers luvvie!