Day 2 At Sea

After a restless night wondering if Captain Wigan had enough of the bridge crew awake and alert looking for icebergs we finally managed to drop off, only to be rudely awakened from our slumber by a loud banging on the ship’s hull.  For that fraction of a second we thought Poseidon!  It must be the rescue divers sounding out for signs of life.  As it happens, it was just the waves hitting the bow of the ship and sending a thumping noise along the hull.  I guess it’s a problem with being in the cheap seats.  We can only hope they don’t drop anchor in the middle of the night, otherwise there could be some funny smells and a bit of explaining to do to Crossby, the cabin steward regarding the state of the bunks.

Sorry if yesterdays pictures have not published, I’ll investigate that later.

Having recovered from the pseudo iceberg attack, we launched into breakfast, doing a full English as proud as we could.  After breakfast we donned our fleeces and did three revolutions of the Promenade deck.  Not sure how far it was, but the windproof fleeces barely kept out the biting, gale force winds that were blowing.  On one revolution the sun was shining and the skies were blue, the next it was impossible to distinguish between the black, rain sodden sky and the sea.  A real mixed bag.

One thing that was clear was the amount of shipping that was accompanying us on the high seas.  They were coming in all directions and in all shapes and sizes.  Our attention was distracted from the icebergs and focussed on not hitting another ship.  Due to the close proximity of all the ships in this area of the North Atlantic our minds instantly focussed on another threat ........U boats!!!!!!   A ship this size would be a sitting target for them.  Fortunately we had bought the binoculars, so we rushed to the cabin to retrieve them and started scouring the sea, looking for tell tale signs of bubbles and periscope wake.

The ship was obviously prepared for U boat attack as on the boat deck there were depth charges. Although Captain Charlie Carr, from Wigan, tried to assure us that these were actually life rafts.  But I didn’t spend 8 years at sea to have the wool pulled over my eyes.

We couldn’t spend too long looking for the perishers as it was soon time to go to the cookery demonstration by the chefs in the Marco Pierre White and East restaurants.  Unfortunately there were no free samples, so we have to wait until November 19^th when we’re booked into Marcos’s restaurant for my birthday.

 

Cookery was then followed by a talk from an old lady about the history of the Caribbean, but unfortunately, she got tripped up by her PowerPoint presentation seizing up, just as she was getting into full flight.  Regrettably, it took a member of the audience, who was well versed in the ways of Apple Macs, to dig her out of the hole that she was rapidly disappearing into.  Once out of the hole she was clearly shaken by the experience, but soldiered on to the end in true British tradition.  Let’s hope she can stay out of the clag tomorrow for part 2 of 8 talks.

 

Time for lunch, so we decided to have a light salad in the Beachcomber restaurant, as opposed to three courses of cooked in our main restaurant.  You have to know when to pace yourself – three weeks is a long time.

 

After a short sit in the sun, but in the shelter of the still howling gale, we retired for a brief nap before I went to the art gallery to hear about how they produce limited edition prints for artists like Rolf Harris etc.  It was most interesting and I’ll probably attend some of the other presentations over the coming days on various artists and who are the up and coming artists to invest in.

 

Dressing up night tonight, so time for a G&T before seeing if Ken’s tuxedo still fits me.

 

All fits so it’s off to second sitting.  Managed all 5 courses tonight, so not sure how long everything will fit for!  Sea state still has a long Atlantic swell running so will get rocked to sleep tonight.