Monday 21st April

Sailing on a South Westerly course in the Arabian Sea along the Omani coast, passing the port of Mirbat (scene of the famous battle of Mirbat where nine SAS soldiers led by Cap’t Mike Kearny, held off 400 rebel soldiers who were attempting to take the port in 1972). We expect to head North into the Red Sea through the Gulf of Aden through the night. Today was extremely hot again so I spent a lot of it indoors watching the sea pass by. The Captain’s announcement gave an update on the Norovirus situation, he said there had been a significant reduction in newly reported cases and the ship was returning to normal levels of service. Could it be that we offloaded about a thousand passengers in Dubai which would give us an instant 50% improvement? The atmosphere and character of the ship has once more changed subtly with the recent influx of Brits, it’s strange how the character of a ship can change with the mix of passenger nationalities. The talk today was, ‘Is there anyone out there?’ by Richard Holdaway about the universe, which turned out to be a whistle stop tour, with so many facts and figures my head was reeling; the videos were amazing though, most of them through Hubble but some of the sun were taken by specialist satellites. But an answer to the question, Is there anyone out there? was there none.