A lazy day at sea

A rather bumpy sea

After all the fun and excitement of the fashion show, I wasn’t half hungry. Not boring food hungry you understand. Nice, treat sort of hungry. I hadn’t had one of their pretend clotted cream teas for weeks and yesterday seemed the perfect time to sample one of their scones again. They’re only little and were just the sustenance I needed. Then on to the monthly Hadley Zoom call. We started this during COVID as a means to try and keep tabs on dad and we’ve continued with this tradition since then, now keeping tabs on each other. It was lovely to see my sibs and this time away has really brought home to me that importance.

We got ready for our evening out and before going out, finished off our pop from a couple of nights ago. Such restraint! And I have to report, last night’s dinner was another lovely one. But let’s face it, you simply can’t go wrong with a prawn curry. We actually had the desert also. It was the caramelised pineapple with rum and raisin ice cream which we’d had before and was lovely. Wow, it’s not often we have a triple whammy. When we got back to our room, there was a bottle of wine and a lovely note thanking me for taking part in the fashion show. How nice was that?

We had a little wine left from a couple of nights ago too and decided we’d return to our cabin and finish that off as there was nothing on the billboards we wanted to see last night. Though on the QT, I’m sure Nick really did want to go to the second Eric and Ern tribute show. Yeah, right! Books in bed were as exciting as it got last night. Another clock change before we turned out the lights in readiness for the next day.

This morning I made a concerted effort to ignore Nick. Kettle on, curtains open, potter, potter, potter. Eventually, I realised pretence was futile and greeted the day. Blimey, 10 o’clock. Not bad at all, though as Nick soon reminded me, it was really only 9 o’clock. Don’t start that game matey. Who knows what time it really is given our volume of times changes of late. It must be 5 o’clock somewhere and we know what that means!

Horizon Magazine instructions

Then it has to be said, a certain amount of chaos ensued. On our Horizon magazine, there were instructions that “as per maritime law” blah blah blah. Every month, for familiarisation purposes, the emergency bells are sounded and if you choose to visit your muster station, you’ll get your cruise card scanned. This was happening at 10.30. It would seem the Bridge team weren’t aware of what was in the Horizon literature, as the Officer of the Watch announced we had to go to our muster stations and get our cruise cards scanned. And if we didn’t, we have to attend extra safety briefings. This announcement was made at 10.20. I was still stumbling around the cabin not having achieved anything in my 20 minutes of being “properly” awake.

Breakfast finished at 11am. My hair was a cross between a walnut whip and a Mr Whippy ice cream. There was no way I could give everyone more of a fright than normal and throw some clothes on just for the purpose of getting my cruise card scanned. There’s nothing quite like a bit of pressure to get your butt in gear. Showered, dressed and hair semi-dried in 10 minutes. Get me! Alarms were sounded and off we went… "calmly and quickly, but not running". I’m still chuckling at Steevan’s greeting, “did the alarms wake you up?” We have some good banter with Steevan and he’s got used to our late get-ups and late go-outs in the evening. Occasionally there is a little joke “ohhhh, up early today?” It’s only because we have an early trip. He’s got a lovely sense of humour and is brilliant at his job too. What’s not to like.

Off we went to get our cruise cards scanned, joining the inevitable queue building up on the stairs. Let’s face it, we don’t want to go for detention after school or whatever is involved with “attending extra safety briefings”. After breakfast, the inevitable walk and for some reason, Nick was on slow mode today. I felt my hip was much better today and found the walk easier than it has been. I’m not saying we were the slowest walking the prom deck today, but I reckon the only folk we overtook were an elderly couple using walking sticks. That says it all. 

Since mid-day yesterday to mid-day today, we have steamed 299 nautical miles at an average speed of 13.2 knots, leaving us 550 nautical miles until we reach Ponta Delgada. We’re still experiencing a heavy swell, but are being assisted along with a south-westerly wind of 30 knots. We’ve got lovely sunny weather today with 21 degrees, 2000 metres of water below our keel and the water temperature is 19 degrees. While we can, we’re still making the most of the sun and having some relaxing time on our balcony. There are no talks of interest today, so a day with our books. 

As neither of us is too fussed at what’s on the menu tonight, we’ve decided we need some proper food of the Glass House variety.