The captain says we are going to run up to the south coast and shelter in the lee of the UK mainland, rather than go down the middle of the Channel as we usually would. He also said he is booking an early parking slot at Southampton, in case we get home early, so we can, as he put it, ‘Get a good night’s sleep’ before we disembark. Not sure how I feel about that, to be honest. Firstly, I sleep better when it’s moving, and, secondly, if I wanted to sleep in Southampton, I’d book a hotel. Meh, we’ll see what happens.

At least this gives me time for the sea colour update.

Water scientists have a scale for sea colour description, named after Francois Alphonse Forel and Willi Ule (Swiss and German respectively) and is, perhaps a little unfortunately, called the Florel-Ule Scale or FU for short. No, really. Google it if you don’t believe me.

The colour of the water is assessed by lowering a white disc called a Secchi disc into the water until it disappears completely, noting the depth (which is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Secchi depth)(Secchi discs are all white for marine water and black and white quadrants for freshwater and were originally designed to measure water transparency), and then raising it to precisely half that depth. The colour seen is then compared to a standardised set of liquids of different colours and the closest number assigned. Apparently, we humans are remarkably consistent with our appreciation of water colours and it is all very regular and orderly – as one might expect from a Swiss/German invention!

Some natural phenomena can change water colour but it does not necessarily mean that the water is of bad quality. The different colour numbers correspond mainly to these types of water bodies:

• Indigo blue to greenish blue with high light penetration (1-5 FU scale). These waters have often low nutrient levels and low production of biomass. The colour is dominated by microscopic algae (phytoplankton).
• Greenish blue to bluish green (6-9 FU scale). The colour is still dominated by algae, but also increased dissolved matter and some sediment may be present. Typical for areas towards the open sea.
• Greenish (10-13 FU scale). Often coastal waters which usually display increased nutrient and phytoplankton levels, but also contain minerals and dissolved organic material.
• Greenish brown to brownish green (14-17 FU scale). Usually with high nutrient and phytoplankton concentrations, but also increased sediment and dissolved organic matter. Typical for near-shore areas and tidal flats.
• Brownish green to cola brown( 18-21 FU scale). Waters with an extremely high concentration of humic acids, which are typical for rivers and estuaries.

So now you know.

Woken by the captain shouting at me through the emergency channel, to update us on our somewhat bumpy journey progression. In summary, we have been tacking up the coast of Portugal and they are keeping an eye on the weather.

Most of the afternoon was taken up sitting in Andersons doing Sudoku with EVERYONE ELSE ON THE SHIP. They were airlifting a Medevac off the back and everyone was evacuated from the stern in case the helicopter crashed into the ship by mistake. So everyone was shunted to the front half of the vessel for a couple of hours. Andersons was packed!

Then dinner and annoyingly sporadic telly (if the ship sways too much from side to side, we lose the satellite signal, usually mid-word at the most dramatic moment) til bed.

At 6.30 am the next morning one of my drinking glasses, that had previously sat quite quietly on top of the fridge, got tired of the rolling motion and committed hari kari, so I had to clear the shards of broken glass off the floor. Definitely quite bumpy now.

Then back to bed.

Posh loyalty lunch today. We are supposed to get an officer. We got an idiot. We eventually gave up trying to get him to explain what the hell he actually did after the following exchanges.

Your badge says Food and Beverages Services Manager, so do we talk to you about the smoked salmon issue (apparently the chefs do not know the difference between the kind of smoked salmon you put on a bagel and Alaskan whole smoked salmon, which is thick and flakey and has a much stronger flavour and is not suitable for bagels)? No, I deal with Public Health.

So, when the water went off yesterday lunchtime on Deck 12, it was you that should have told people to go to their cabins to use the toilets, to enable them to flush and wash their hands, and prevent the spread of infection in the restaurants and public toilets. No, I deal with Public Health in the kitchens only.

So, you were responsible for ensuring that, when the water went off yesterday, the waiters and chefs were able to access water to wash their hands, then? No, I didn’t know the water went off.

As the next words would have been swear words (along the lines of “So what the f*!& DO you actually do?!), I just gave up talking to him. He’s clearly a useless idiot with nothing to contribute. We pretty much talked around him for the rest of the lunch. Added to which, he was either very deaf or just decided to ignore mum throughout, because she was sat next to him and he never once even looked at her, let alone spoke to her, even when she was speaking directly to him.

The food was nice. And the other two ladies at the table were fairly good company. He was a waste of space, which bearing in mind time in his company is supposed to be our reward and give us insight into life on board, was a little irritating. Heigh ho. Whatever.

Then I had a lie down/siesta and then went for my massage (mum’s treat for hurting my back pushing her up the hill in Fuerteventura!). Full body massage for an hour and a half. Bliss. My back is much better. Not 100%, but definitely better than it was.

Then dinner, which was quite adequate, food-wise.

It has been quite rough today, and it is not going to improve. Lisbon was cancelled by announcement at 6pm. We need to get ahead of Storm Eleanor before it gets to our bit of the Atlantic. So we are pegging it and rolling quite a lot. Yesterday we were pitching. The one thing we don’t want is both at once!

During dinner, dad and I noticed that, every so often, the vibrations reduced significantly, and we figured out that what was happening is that the swell is so large that one of the screws (propeller shafts) is actually coming clean out of the water, so there is no resistance when it turns in the air. Luckily, most others do not seem to have cottoned on!

The captain warned that we are heading towards waves of 11 metres or so (measured from the top of a peak to the bottom of a trough). The prom deck is only 12 metres from sea level. This is Not Good. Things could get very interesting soon.

Word of warning: apparently I have been describing the sea colours all wrong. I will shortly amend this. Have your mea culpa now, while it’s still at the forefront of my mind.

I’ve hurt my back. I think I’ve pulled/ torn a muscle. Flat on my back all day apart from dinner, and regretted even that. Gave me time for a little proofreading. The onboard daily newspaper for the 30^th stated that La Gomera is “The most north-westerly of the seven Canary Islands”. Well, firstly, there are not seven Canary Islands, there are thirteen, to my knowledge. And La Gomera is not the most north-westerly of them anyway. La Palma is. That’s the level of information accuracy given to P&O passengers. Good, eh?

Didn’t go anywhere. Didn’t do anything. Sat on deck for a bit, enjoying the warmth (24 degrees – did I mention that?) and then went back to the cabin to cool down!

We left about 12.45 am. People said the fireworks over the island were very pretty, but I was flat on my back in the cabin, watching the fireworks from around the world on the news, instead. I’m not a huge fan of fireworks, to be honest, so I turned off those as well. Happy New Year anyway.

Monday

It got pretty bumpy pretty quickly after we left the shelter of the archipelago and started heading back north. Also a leetle bit too blowy for sitting outside by late afternoon. I did it anyway and got a bit too chilled, so I went back to the cabin to warm up before dinner. At least the movement of the ship put a few people off coming to dinner, which made life a little easier for the waiters. Although some people are becoming unwell, so that doesn’t make life easier for the staff who have to clean up after them. I hope it doesn’t get really bumpy, because this bunch of passengers seem to be RUBBISH sailors!

Now, THIS is more like it.

24 degrees in the shade. Very humid. Proper tropical weather. Blue skies and white fluffy clouds.

La Gomera is one of the smaller Canary Islands (I think El Hierro is the smallest (?)), accessible only by sea or short hop flight from another island – the airport’s runway is not long enough for international flights.

The ‘capital’, San Sebastian, is a testament to the power of EU funding. A brand new concrete mooring for cruise ships, and lovely new smooth pavements, dipped kerbs, zebra crossings, and so on. This means there is a long walk to get away from the ship (parking sideways on means we have to walk the entire length of the ship to get anywhere), but a very pleasant place at the end of it.

The shuttle bus took us to the bus station, which is precisely the opposite end of the town from the ship’s mooring, and does not have any dipped kerbs, which is a little ill-thought-out. But once you get away from that, the place is quite pleasant. I suppose it’s silly to expect anywhere to have a pleasant bus station, now I come to think about it! But accessible would have been a start.

There are four streets to the main town – think Whittier or Burnie but a little more built up and scrunched together. There are some old buildings, such as the various churches, and a tower called the Torre del Conde. This is a Spanish military keep, where Columbus stayed when he was in the area, and is now a sort of mini museum. Not good accessibility-wise, mind you. There’s an archaeology museum and the whole island is a walker’s dream. That’s about it.

One dress shop, two supermarkets, one stationers/toy shop, one souvenir shop, etc.

But this is a pootler’s paradise. Do NOT order a drink if you have less than an hour and a half to spare. You will wait 30 minutes for attention, a good 45 for the drinks to come and more time still to get a bill and pay. But, as long as you can deal with island time, which we can – we’re not rushing off anywhere – it was lovely.  Suffice to say that even we were back in board in time for lunch and a siesta. Very pleasant.

This place is highly recommended. Pretty good for accessibility, reasonable prices, lovely people, small, no traffic, good weather. Ideal. For us, at least. Cannot recommend it highly enough. Perfect day. And back on board in time for a siesta as well! Marvellous. Probably the best day of the entire cruise.

If you decide to read on, you must promise to read all the way to the end before you start emailing me or messaging me. Agreed? Good.

Woken at ten by breakfast arriving On Time. While I’m chewing my bizarrely leathery GF toast, Dad rang. We’re in the Medical Centre.

Turns out mum has a chest infection – hence the wheezing yesterday. Antibiotics and Tamiflu and liquids and a Paracetamol drip to bring down her fever and bed rest. I took dad to eat something while she had her drip and we brought her back some pizza, which she wolfed down, so no appetite issues at least, and the fever had gone.

£400 and several hours later, we were back in the cabin. She dozed, dad dozed. I did Sudoku. At about 2.30, I went back to my cabin and slept for two hours.

Spoke to Dad at 5. Mum’s MUCH better and charging around the cabin. See you at dinner. In fact, she was livelier at dinner than she has been all week.

That was Gran Canaria, that was.

Was NOT woken by announcements. Woohoo! This may be a first for a P&O cruise. Ever. Woke naturally, breakfast arrived bang on time and was exactly as ordered. What a lovely start to a day! Met the parents and went ashore. The shuttle bus was right next to the ship, so no valuable energy resources wasted crossing vast terminals and so on. Another plus. Also, bright sunshine and blue skies, too, which was nice.

The shuttle bus dropped us somewhere quite useful in town (and easy to pronounce for return taxi trips!). The shuttle buses are free for most passengers, unless you got a specially-discounted fare, which is extra cheap because (a) you don’t get to choose your cabin; you get what you’re given and (b) you pay £4 pp each way for shuttle buses. There are a few other caveats, but those are the main ones, I think. Anyway, it’s free for us.

Madeira is very disabled-friendly, with properly dipped kerbs, plenty of wheelchair-accessible loos and so on. But it is VERY hilly, so it’s tricky to get around on foot. Funchal, the capital, is built on hills and cliffs, which make for great views when you get wherever you’re going, but pretty tricky to get there! The far end of town even has a cable car to get you to the botanical gardens. It’s that steep. And, views-wise, Reid’s is at the other end. Afternoon tea on the verandha overlooking the bay is very lovely, but quite expensive. Everyone should do it once, but your bank manager might not be so pleased if you do it regularly!

The shuttle bus dropoff was, rather handily, almost opposite a taxi rank, so we had very little to do to get to transportation. We went to Forum Madeira shopping centre. This is outside town to the west, on the way to Camera de Lobos, which you may recall from a previous blog entry – Winston Churchill painted there and we were given free banana liqueurs, remember? We didn’t go all the way out there this time, only as far as the shopping centre, which was about 10 minutes out of Funchal.

Forum Madeira contained the following shops which we needed:

Mr Minit (for hearing aid batteries for dad and watch battery for Ben’s watch (which he gave me last night cos he didn’t want to disembark). Tick.

C&A for mum. Although I was the one who did the buying of stuff here. Several tops and some thick socks. Tick.

Punt Roma for mum. She bought a rather lovely cardigan. Tick.

McDonalds for me to have my gluten free hamburger. Woohoo! Tick.

We spent several happy hours pootling slowly around. Ironically the longest distance covered was down the side corridor to the lifts and loos!

The only shop we did not have that we needed was a pharmacy, so we took the bus back into town. Parents got back on the shuttle bus to the ship, and I walked up a hill to the nearest pharmacy to get our missing items. The fact that I may have accidentally wandered into H&M and bought some trousers and makeup is neither here nor there. Moving on. Nothing to see here. Ahem.

Overall, a ludicrously successful day. After several days at sea, with plenty of thinking time, there is always a List of Stuff to get when we finally get to land. To get it all done in one day is unheard of. I can’t think of a time it has happened before, anyway.

By the time I got back, however, I was so shattered, I could barely stand, so I had a lie down before dinner. Unfortunately, the addictive nature of Love, Actually rather stopped me from dozing off, so I was pretty pooped by the time I got to the table and reunited Ben with his newly-resurrected watch. (Is it physically possible to watch the last fifteen minutes of that film without getting something in your eye?!)

After dinner, I went back to the cabin, and that’s where things started to fall apart. All I wanted to do was put the telly on, get into my pjs, veg out in front of something pointless, like Tipping Point or Sleepy Hollow, and go to sleep. But I couldn’t find the remote control and the telly doesn’t work without. I searched the whole cabin. I even checked in the fridge! Then I gave up, got dressed again and went to find my steward, who was doing turndowns in the next corridor. He came to search and he couldn’t find it either. So he rang his boss to ask what to do. I was so tired I was on the verge of tears by this point. I just wanted to go to bed, not wait for other idiots to turn up and stare at me blankly. He then left to go and talk to her. I rang her and said I wasn’t prepared to sit around while she sorted out her managerial processes, I just wanted a replacement remote so I could go to bed. She said she would contact Technology and Communications and … I hung up. I had already explained I was not interested in the ship’s processes, I just wanted to sleep. Then the Desk Housekeeper rang me and suggested sending the steward to search. When I said he already had, the Deck Housekeeper refused to give me his name and said I was shouting at him, and then he hung up on me. I wasn’t shouting. I didn’t have the energy! I was crying with fatigue. I rang Reception and the lovely Chelsea said she would sort it. Not long after, a remote arrived. An old battered thing, that rattles when it moves and is held together with sellotape, but it does the job. Lovely. Job done. Then Chelsea rang to say it was on its way (!) and I said it had come. So now I could go to bed. Lovely, ta. Great. She said she would speak to the Deck Housekeeper about customer service and how hanging up on the passenger is not acceptable practice. Fine, do what you like, but on your own time. I’m going to bed.

Last minute thought – must put out breakfast card for the morning before retiring. Check the folder. You tell me if you think there were any menu cards in it. Go on, guess. So I rang Chelsea back and she said she would send some. Half an hour later, I ran out of patience, again, and went out into the corridor to find a steward standing at the end of the corridor, having a chat with a colleague, with a wadge of breakfast cards in his hand. If looks could kill, I’d have been arrested on the spot, and the new carpet would have been ruined. He handed them over – rather sheepishly – I expect he had been told the delivery was urgent as the passenger had had enough tonight. NOW I can go to bed. TWO HOURS after I got back to my cabin. Thanks, people. Thanks. It wasn’t like I wanted or needed an early night or anything.

On the plus side, it was a little too hot for jeans today, so tomorrow is almost definitely shorts. And we don’t dock til 10, so no early starts in the offing either. All good. Gnite.

Monday 25^th December 2017 Christmas Day

Do white horses count towards a white Christmas? It’s the closest we’re going to get when it’s 17 degrees in the shade and glorious sunshine. Mind you, white horses are pretty tame as regards possible weather options, even if they are the roughest seas we’ve had so far on this trip!

Didn’t sleep very well, but had a lie-in instead. Lovely long soak in the shower. Pressure a bit dodgy but temperature good, so this boiler might just last us out, after all. Met Ben and the parents for late breakfast/fruit/ lunch. As dinner tonight starts at 5.30 tonight (don’t ask me why – no idea – it’s a formal/gala dinner, but there aren’t THAT many courses!), no one ate much! When Ben left, we swapped our presents. I got a lovely silver bracelet and a unicorn pen and a fair amount of chocolate in various shapes, sizes and flavours, and the parents seemed very happy with their gifts, although dad did complain about the added weight for the suitcases! Then mum went to the hairdresser and Dad and I did admin chores at Reception, before we all went back to the cabins for a siesta. I slept like a log. Woke at 5.10pm and thought “Oh, got an hour yet”, and turned over to go back to sleep. Then, about thirty seconds later, it dawned on me that dinner tonight is at 5.30, not 6.30. Spiffing. Wore the mauve dress that makes me feel like a princess (Thank you, Wendy!). Couldn’t eat much food, but the turkey with all the trimmings was quite tasty.

Then back to the parents’ cabin to plan tomorrow. I made a list of words we need to know in Portuguese (watch battery for Ben, gluten free for me, hearing aid battery for dad).

Weather forecast for tomorrow: 18 in the shade, so mid-twenties plus in the sun. Shorts weather possibly?