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. 

There are 800 staff on board, from the Captain, through the ship’s officers, the “hotel” managers and team, to the cooks, servers, cabin stewards, cleaners, kitchen staff and security. Then there are the people you don’t see in the engine room, running the internal systems of air conditioning, lighting, water supply and sewage, all backed up by maintenance staff. Add to them front of house teams for administration, expeditions, restaurant management, the medics and nurses and all the entertainers including compères, musicians, dancers and singers and all the guest speakers and acts who arrive for a few days and then fly off again. P&O felt there weren’t enough staff on board and added a further 20 at Montevideo. 

Last night’s show by the in-house Headliners troupe was 45 minutes of music and energetic dance and singing in a replica pub which provided a loose context for an even looser story that tied the songs together. A massive amount of work and practice had gone into the show which they performed three times in one evening. We couldn’t help wondering how many of them had been through Jonny Wilkes’ Stage Academy in Stoke on Trent. 

Each evening we receive a magazine that outlines the diary of events for the following day. As you can see, we have identified three things to see because, being at sea, one has more leisure to do things like this. We managed to resist the bingo, but only just! On a shore day, the events list shortens considerably. 

Today we began with Michelle’s presentation on San Antonio (before breakfast!). It’s an uninspiring port which is the gateway however to Valparaiso and Santiago, both of which we are visiting in a few days’ time. They, unlike our port, are vibrant, exciting cultural centres with loads to see and do. Looking forward to the two days there. 

We also saw Cally (Hall) Oldershaw who is the author of various works on gemstones - a gemologist and earth scientist. Her presentation was to be on the difference between Arctic and Antarctic regions, but she was beset with technical problems that meant she had to rush through her slides at top speed. We’ll see her next one which will hopefully be issue-free. 

Tonight, there’s more entertainment in store with music and comedy in two theatres, separated by dinner. 

We met a couple last night who had not left the ship at Montevideo, even though we were there for two days, because they had been before and they were just escaping winter in the UK. And, talking of which, Captain Love lied in his announcement a couple of days ago that the temperature would drop by 4 degrees a day as we travelled south. It’s plummeted and is today a chilly and breezy 15C making for a bracing time as we yomped around the deck on our morning walk. 

We’ve made 400 nautical miles since midday yesterday at an average speed of 16.5 knots and we were 361 nautical miles East of Cabo Tres Puntas at midday. The area of sea through which we are travelling has an average depth of 4 kilometres and we reach our destination of Port Stanley in the Falklands tomorrow morning. All being well the weather will be kind enough for us to disembark by tender. More of that tomorrow.