Saturday 25th January

Day at sea again en route to Limon Costa Rica and back to catch up time. Weather is now in the hot to very hot category with the added danger of a brisk cooling wind, too dangerous for me. I leave that sort of stuff to Carol, who is slowly turning a mahogany brown. I went to the final talk on the Panama Canal which was about the recent and nearly completed modifications that will more than double capacity using 7% less water. These modifications mean the canal will be able to take much larger ships (the Queen Mary will be able to transit once the new bit is open). Up to now ships have either had to be built to a size that will fit the existing locks (the so called Panama ships) or built much bigger and use alternate routes like the Suez. Later Carol wanted to go and watch the ships chefs put on a cooking demonstration, proper curries and posh easy puddings etc. I went along just in case there was some tasting to do. There wasn’t!

Dinner was formal again and being Burns night we had haggis, I say we, what I should have said was, we all had haggis except for Carol who being a Scot and knowing exactly what is involved in the making of the beast, steered well clear. Well that’s my theory, Carol of course denies it, which she would I guess, having been sworn to secrecy as a bairn. Anyway we then went to watch the aforementioned haggis be addressed (puzzled me a bit as I thought this was meant to happen before we ate it) which it duly was and then we watched an attractive young lady in a miniskirt dance the sword dance. Well I say the sword dance, the swords were actually two pieces of hardboard wrapped in tinfoil, but that’s being a bit picky in these days of health and safety and anyway I wasn’t paying much attention to the swords if the truth were told. When the fun was over we went up to bed as tomorrow is another early start 5:45am even though the clocks go back an hour again tonight.