Saturday 12th April

Well as I said Carol was released first thing this morning as all symptoms had gone, so it looks like a bug she picked up in Colombo somehow. All she had to eat was a piece of sponge cake which we all had. The Ships news letter said that there had been an increase of reported gastric sickness in the last twenty four hours and a captain’s special announcement said that these were continuing, so special precautions have been introduced. No more self-service in the Lido for now and to cope with the extra staff needed two restaurants have been temporarily closed. They are worried about Norovirus but I don’t think that was what Carol had because I didn’t get it and it is notoriously contagious, to the extent that you can get it from touching lift buttons. Anyway Carols bug cleared up within twenty four hours.

Today sees us still in the Arabian Sea keeping a good lookout from Pirates, ahaar Jim lad! We were given a talk today by Lieutenant Commander Eedle RN on the background to Piracy in this part of the world, how they operate and what we can or can’t expect. It appears that the risk of a cruise ship being boarded is infinitesimally small as there has never been an attempt on a ship doing more than sixteen knots (we normally do eighteen to twenty two). The pirates require a freeboard (distance between the sea and the ships rail) of less than ten feet, to be able to climb on board easily and they like to board ships with a ratio of two to one or better in numbers (small crew sizes are easier to contain) six pirates holding three thousand people to ransom seems a bit unlikely. But it was an interesting talk and the origins of this spate of piracy plausible. The armed men on board are all ex Royal Marines and are provided by a company called Solace hired by Cunard to provide protection. Lieutenant Commander Eedle RN is a liaison officer for the international force patrolling in this region. He said that he had worked alongside Solace before and had the utmost respect for them, they were extremely well trained and well disciplined. This evening before dinner one of our table told us about the Yorkshire Ripper as he worked on that case as a detective when he was in the police. Hard work when you think there was no computerisation, no word processors and no mobiles. You get some interesting insights into other people’s lives on board.