Sea Day 7 of 9 – Monday 15^th February 2016

Every day at noon the First Officer does an announcement, updating us on some stuff. Herewith today’s highlights. We have now travelled 13,012 nautical miles since leaving Southampton. We are in what is known as the British Exclusive Economic Zone. We apparently have Sovereign rights in this area, because we are within 200 miles of Pitcairn, which is a British Territory with 70 inhabitants (did you know Pitcairn was British?! I didn’t). We are also in the vicinity of falling space debris (well, where else would you send it down but in the middle of the middle of nowhere?!), and the Bridge will try and find out when it is due to land and whether we will be close enough to see it – apparently it’s an old Russian satellite that they are trying to burn up. The air temperature is now 27 in the shade. Some sort of siren started on the Bridge while the First Officer was giving us that information. Oops. I don’t think we were supposed to hear that! I wonder what it was. Maybe we are closer to the satellite’s landing track than we thought?!

24 lengths. Ridiculous current.  My arms are still aching four hours later.

Dinner was a piece of chicken that took up half my ten inch plate and was a good two inches thick at the centre. I assume it was a chicken. But, if it was, it was most of one. I think the special diets chef has decided that he feeds me so badly during the daytime, that he really needs to play catch-up at dinner. Either that, or he is trying to kill me with quantity, so I’ll be less of a nuisance in future. It feels like every day the portions are getting bigger. Everyone was intrigued to see if I could get through it, but as I only had fruit for lunch, I was more than capable. Mind you, I ordered jelly for dessert, and I really thought I wouldn’t have room for it.

I think I have figured out why I have no appetite. It’s because every night now we lose an hour, so lunch is an hour closer to breakfast or last night’s dinner. I am typing this at 9pm our time, which is 4am tomorrow for you, and our clocks go back again tonight, so 8pm your time tomorrow will be noon for us. I think. And then tomorrow, they go back again, I think… To be honest, I’m really not sure any more. It’s very confusing, and everyone is tired and exhausted and confused. We are all forgetting appointments and getting muddled, and if snoozing was an Olympic sport, there isn’t a passenger aboard that would not be in with a medal hope. Come to think of it, even the crew are getting a bit discombobulated, and they do this all the time. Savio, the bar manager of the Spinnaker Bar, said that his sleep patterns are also up the spout. We are all, all over the place. I just hope the Bridge team are holding it together better than the rest of us!

Won’t see mum and dad til late tomorrow, because, at Valparaiso, they went up a loyalty tier, and so they have a luncheon tomorrow, just for them. The P&O points system only takes into account the past three years of cruises (ten points for every day at sea), so you can drop down really easily, and then pop up again on a long one like this. It’s very silly. Apparently, the Baltic and Ligurian (top two) tiers tomorrow are now so under-populated that there will only be six tables tomorrow at their lunch! Doesn’t really seem worth the bother, if you ask me. I’ll stay on deck (in the shade/pool) and stick to my fruit platter. Much more manageable, and the dress code is more relaxed too!

People are now starting to whinge about the number of sea days in a row. I love it, but I may have mentioned that not everyone feels the same. This is what cabin fever actually is. They get sick of the same four walls, and even being out of deck can feel oppressive. Personally, I think if you enjoy a sea day, you enjoy a sea day, and the number in a row shouldn’t matter, but apparently some people get really desperate to feel solid land under their feet. This is day seven. How these spoiled, whinging idiots would have coped on a five WEEK trip from the UK to Australia, I cannot imagine. It’s pathetic, if you ask me.

Right now, it’s just a bit of light-hearted moaning (mostly along the lines of “I’m bored”), but in the next day or so, it could get a bit grumpy. It has, actually, already begun. One bloke bit my head off today for suggesting that putting his sunlounger across the only path across the deck, thus blocking a waiter and his trolley, was perhaps somewhat less than 100% sensible. Got all huffy about what he called “doing what he was told”. Seeing as the waiter had been saying ‘Excuse me’ for the best part of two minutes before I intervened, I figured he was either deaf or stupid, so I stepped in to help. Well, if you can’t be considerate enough to think that maybe people need to get past your arrogant arse; like, ooh, I dunno, staff, wheelchair and scooter users, or the people bringing you YOUR OWN LUNCH, then maybe you do need to have it pointed out to you, Einstein.  Some people. *sigh*

Plenty more where that came from, I’m guessing. It’ll be nice to get to Tahiti on Thursday, when the attitude will hopefully get dialled back down a notch or two.

Oh poo. I think I forgot to pay my mortgage last month. I told you we were all confused. Oops. There goes my lovely credit score I’ve spent a year rebuilding. *sigh*