Tuesday 15th April

Another fantastic Persian Gulf type day, hot weather with the ship making twenty four knots a beautiful breeze blowing across all decks. Hard to believe we are only three to four weeks away to the end. Where have all the days gone? We have not done much today, but that does not mean not much has happened. Dr Ramie Seth’s last talk today was on looking at Great Britain through Dark Brown eyes, he is an excellent speaker and funny with it. He asked did we know why the sun never set on the British Empire? Well it appears that God wouldn’t trust an Englishman in the dark. His talk was littered with quips like that, but it was fascinating to hear someone so complimentary about many of the things that Brits complain about all the time and he acknowledged that things weren’t perfect but as he said they were a lot better than other countries around the world. There was a group of Chinese sitting in front of us and we noticed them all nodding in agreement at many of the things he talked about, but then I guess when you think about the things they have to put up with, any country would look good.

Captain came on at midday and told us that there had been a marked reduction in new cases of illness, but there was still an elevated background level, so they were going to maintain the additional measures for another twenty four hours and if the downward trend continues these can be relaxed gradually. Our two patients were put ashore at Muscat round about Five o’clock, we went quite close in and for once it seemed like little had changed since 1967 the forts were still there and the hilltop lookout towers, there was a new dockyard, granted, but it was nice to see something again nearly 50 years later that hadn’t changed much. Though we have now slowed down to 16 knots, our previous increased speed means that we will still reach Dubai early, arriving at 6pm rather than 8am the following day, but quite what we are going to do with the extra evening, I’m not sure. Clocks go back another hour tonight making us 3 hours ahead of you. Just had a break from writing this as Carol spotted a pod of dolphins playing alongside. This time I did manage to get some film of them, though they had passed by a bit, so not sure how they will look when we replay it. Need to go now as the moons rising on the horizon and I need a shower before dinner, Oh! we have had two new people join us at Mumbai a Sri Lankan couple, Alan and I will have to check her name cos I’ve forgotten. He is an ears, nose and throat surgeon, they both seem good fun and they are on till Southampton. So we still have a full table for now.