Sunday 16th March

What a wet and miserable day we found today when we woke up, thank goodness we are at sea, yesterday was a lovely Spring type day and today is a typical winters day. We are having satellite problems, because there are so many satellite links in Japan and the ships relatively low power satellite communication system is having to compete with their signals. The weather does not help and as a result not much is getting out and not much is getting in. I have managed to get one or two photo’s from my phone up to the cloud ashore but emails from the tablet are effectively gummed up. We had a Q&A session with Lord and Lady Howard following their individual presentations which was interesting, but I felt was a bit rehearsed. Diane Simpson’s in contrast was excellent, she spoke about her first talks and the terror she felt when she realised that a talk she thought she was going to give to a small group turned out to be a talk to a packed theatre. She had everyone falling about laughing as she told of how she was planning to collapse on stage, but had to brief her husband so he would not be concerned. If you ever have chance to see her talk; go! Her range of subjects and her stagecraft are brilliant.

We are heading north and due into Yokohama in a very tight window as we can only get under the bridge when the tide is at its lowest. Which we understand is about eleven pm. So I will be up there to see if we make it.