An active sea day … and a mystery

Sunset over Cartagena as Aurora pivots for takeoff

It never ceases to amaze me how the ship is wielded in and out of port. Yesterday’s manoeuvre was not the most complex but still involved reversing the bulk of Aurora from its berth in Cartagena port, out into the open harbour, turning it sharply to the right as it backed up under the watchful eye of a large tug. Once clear of the jetty, the ship then pivoted around its centre using its side thrusters until it was aligned with the marker buoys that showed the way out to the open sea. At the same time as all this was going on we were rewarded with a beautiful sunset where the sun dropped rapidly behind the skyscrapers and lit the sky with fire. Magical!

Last evening we headed reluctantly to the Medina restaurant for dinner. We’re really getting bored with the food and the restaurant itself, which is a shame because it could be so much better if there was a little more investment in quality ingredients and less of an emphasis on pushing you through the meal process so they can lay up for the next round. We always choose to sit on our own but yesterday’s table was only technically separated from the one next to it. You could just about have squeezed a plate between the two, vertically! Consequently we were squashed in with a couple who turned out to be two singles on date night. They weren’t impressed but we all made the best of it and chatted our way through the meal. One main point of agreement was that for all of us, food is the big issue. We are all disappointed with the quality and try to use the other restaurants as often as possible, even though they have additional costs. Frankly, it’s one of the main things that would dissuade us from using P&O again. 

After dinner we decided on a romantic top deck stroll, gazing at the stars. As we came out onto the rear deck we tried to walk but were blown away by the howling gale. At one point we were hanging on to each other and onto our spectacles in order to prevent them being whipped off our faces by the wind. We decided that discretion was the better part of valour and headed back to the safety of the cabin. 

The morning dawned bright, sunny and blustery and we headed straight off for Michelle’s destination talk on St Lucia, Antigua and St Maarten. We’ve already booked our trips there and her comments reinforced that we had made the right decisions. Then on to a late breakfast before dashing back to the theatre for another talk. 

Our guest speaker was Dale Templar who gave us the inside track on the techniques used to film the Human Planet series for BBC. And, my goodness, what spectacular shots they achieved with a huge variety of techniques and equipment. Slow motion filming with sophisticated cameras was achieved in the most challenging of locations. Helicopter-based cameras, drones and mechanical dollies all formed part of their equipment which had to be dragged to remote corners of the world and then set up in inhospitable locations. Even a hot air balloon to track a train of camels across the Sahara was fraught with difficulty. Absolutely fascinating and part two is on Saturday. 

Captain Love tells his mariner's tales

This afternoon’s treat was another theatre visit with Captain Love being interviewed, live. He was quizzed about his history, how he got into seafaring … well, his father was a Captain before him so, having left school at 16 he became a cadet with P&O and worked his way up the ranks. After a 17-year hiatus from the sea in which he worked in the family’s business: Bradford’s Building Supplies and a spell as HR director for their timber merchants, he returned to the sea in 2007 and became a Captain in 2018. He recounted a number of tales, not least of which was about an incident in 2020 when a wave hit the ship he was commanding and smashed the rear restaurant windows while people were dining. He reckoned that most people shrugged and settled back down to their main course! On this trip however, he said that he had had to override the pilot who was going to crash the ship at the last lock on the Panama Canal. Hairy stuff.

Checking our lap length

Our afternoon thereafter consisted of reading, then our usual stomp for 2.5 miles around the deck. Today’s walk was hard work as we seemed to be walking uphill on the starboard side, fighting against the wind.

Extreme ironing

Having had a brief cuppa, we then indulged in some extreme ironing as we chugged across the Caribbean Sea towards Aruba.

The mystery of the swivelling sign

And finally, someone’s getting bored somewhere on this cruise because we have a Great Mystery! Every night we put our Do not disturb notice on the door so that Steevan knows when we are to be left alone and, conversely when he can deal with the cabin. When we went out for the day yesterday, we turned the Do not disturb notice to say Please service the room. As chance would have it, we met Steevan in town on shore leave and he remarked that he had not serviced our cabin because the Do not disturb was up. Strange, we thought and Gabrielle, of course, blamed me for being dozy and putting it in the wrong way. We thought no more about it until after we woke this morning. We were both stumbling around the cabin in our nothings when Steevan knocked on the door. Strange, we thought (again), as the DND notice was still outside. What could it possibly be? Getting our robes on we opened the door and Steevan said that the notice now said Please service the room but he was fairly sure we had only just woken up as he could see light through the spy hole when the curtains were opened. He’d also noticed that only a few minutes before it had been on Do not disturb and the spy hole had been dark. Someone had swapped it over. But who? And why? We have our top people (Gabrielle) on this and expect the culprit to be apprehended in due course.