Fog…..inexorably rolling in….. Across the endlessly rolling sea…cloaking the horizon in a dense white blanket…… the mournful boom of the foghorn the only sound…..
This was the scene today when we woke up and thus it remained. 14C today and light wind. Rather eerie conditions.
It did not deter us!!!! A lazy start and then a port lecture on our first stop, Praia da Vitoria, Terceira Island, The Azores on Monday. We’ve been to the Azores several times before but always to Ponta del Gada on a different island. So this will be interesting to see. The Azores belong to Portugal so part of the EU. They’ve been inhabited for nearly 700 years. We are going to do our own thing and explore the town. Question: these islands are thousands of miles from Portugal. Do you hear calls for their release from colonial tyranny? Reparations? No…. Just us then…
After that we had a brilliant talk from Dr. Kathryn Sullivan, scientist, astronaut and explorer. She flew 3 space shuttle missions and was the first woman to walk outside the shuttle. She gave a fantastic talk about how it was to live on the shuttle, illustrated with short home film clips and photos of life aboard. Will definitely go and see her second talk in a few days.
After lunch we had art class and it was better today. We painted a cluster of oranges with surrounding foliage. Nowhere near as good as past efforts but a huge improvement on yesterday’s offerings.
Some people are very brave. Well… That’s one explanation!!!! When we sailed from Southampton it was – 1c and there were 4 brave souls in the outdoor pool. Not kids. Not in the jacuzzis. In the Pool. And everyday I see people in there. Not many. I have come to the conclusion they must be amongst the third largest national contingent ie Germans. There is no evidence to support this theory other than my belief Americans and Brits would rather die than do it!!!
Otherwise we quized, read, had a bit of afternoon tea and came back to the cabin about 5ish. Tonight is the first black tie gala night of our leg of the cruise. There are 2 more to come. Tonight’s theme is black and white so after a rest, we got togged up in our finery. You don’t have to either follow the theme or indeed even get togged up. If you want to dress very casually you can dine in the buffet or the pub and go into quite a few of the bars. You can’t go into the ballroom though, the main restaurants, a couple of the bars and the theatre. This maintains the glamorous dress code that is a bit of a standard still on Cunard. The gala nights are always on sea days and the menus in the main restaurants are always rather special on these nights.
We had a tremendous night. Had our photos taken by the photographer, shared a table again at dinner with 4 other people. A nice couple from Oldham and a pair of ladies – old friends – also from that part of the world. Very enjoyable chatter about cruising and travel in general. The meal was really good. Free champagne to start. Then I chose hake rilletts with lemon as an appetiser, then lobster bisque with brandy, then Chateaubriand with mushrooms and spinach and a fondant potato. Bob had similar and then he had baked alaska with cherries.
After dinner we went to the theatre to see a virtuoso clarinetist called Kenny Martyn. He has played all over the world and is renowned as one of the great contemporary players. And that reputation is very well deserved. He was simply terrific and produced sounds out of his clarinet that I had no idea the instrument could make! He lead the Cunard orchestra through a repertoire of big band music, blues, ragtime jazz, Benny Goodman and of course a couple of Acker Bilk classics. Amazing and we will look forward to seeing him again in a couple of nights.
Hoping the fog will have cleared tomorrow. We are making good headway though towards our first port.