Saturday 11th

Woke to a gentle swell and bright sunshine wind 4 to 5. Sorted final texts and emails as the Scilly isles slipped by to starboard and we will be out of touch of the UK networks for some time. (By the way thanks to everyone who sent mails off blog and a reminder to those who want to email us off blog, the addresses are in the contact us page.)

Had a full English and then down to the IT dept. to try and sort out the problem I have in transferring photos from the camera to the tablet. We have bad weather forecast so captain is heading south to avoid the worst.

IT Dept. only knows about iPads and iPhones so drawn a blank, photos may be in short supply until we get back. Went to a lecture on dolphins and promptly fell asleep, so don’t know if it was interesting or not, must have been that breakfast. Weather gradually deteriorating even though we are heading south. Lots of empty places at dinner, one lady missing from our table, Carol made it but was not feeling too bright, she cheered up after a couple of quells but went straight up after dinner. I went to the Golden Lion for a couple of Boddies, but there was only me and the piano player and he kept singing songs at me, so had one and joined Carol.

Sunday 12th January

Weather continued to slowly worsen during the night, heard the odd crash but the bed has good springs so slept well, but there was still only the odd white cap to be seen. Had a lazy day watched the goffers (waves) break over the bow. By afternoon weather is finally making an effort to get serious with white caps on each and every wave. Show has been cancelled tonight as the dancers don’t feel safe (never done flight deck jumping then). If anyone turns up there will be a comedian, hope it’s not the Aussie.

The ship is lurching along, creaking and wheezing, more like an indigent old duchess than a queen with a curious wiggle every now and then, but you can’t call it bad by any stretch of the imagination. If it continues like this I can see it’s going to be me and that piano player again tonight.