It rained. No, that’s not really sufficient. What with gale force winds AND rain, it was, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst weather of the whole cruise. It was easily possible to comprehend how a place we considered a warm, sunny, almost tropical island, could experience such flooding that over 50 died. It fell down. But, troopers that we are, we weren’t going to let that get in the way of a good time. Dear me, no.

It was actually warm and sunny when we disembarked and queued for the shuttle bus. But the second the bus parked in town and opened its doors, the heavens opened. We legged it into McDonalds (the nearest shelter!) and then grabbed a cab. Our driver, Ricardo, drove us up through the town, pointing out damage caused by the flood waters and then out around the west of the island to a beautiful fishing village called Camara de Lobos (the cave of the seals). This is where Churchill used to come to paint. Yes, that Churchill. The restaurant where we ate is where he sat on the balcony and painted the harbour. Presumably in better weather, though…

The service in the restaurant was lethargic, to say the least, but the owner was friendly and the waiting staff (literally) were very obliging and we were in no hurry to go back out into that weather (although it was trying very hard to come in through the windows!), so we sat and chatted with Ricardo for a couple of hours. He used to live and work in Guernsey, so his English was superb, which helped, because our Portuguese is non-existent!

When the food did come (the delay was caused by them making the vegetable soup from scratch), the portions were huge and it was all delicious. I managed less than half of my lamb, which was heartbreaking because it was so yummy. We couldn’t possibly have eaten dessert, which was a shame, because the dessert trolley looked amazing. Oh well, can’t have everything!

Camara de Lobos is a beautiful little village and we had a look round before heading back towards Funchal. Ricardo dropped us at a shopping centre, because we were in a European country so we HAD to find the C&A! Oddly enough, the architects weren’t aware of Madeira’s propensity for rain because, even inside the mall, the roof was only a sort of mesh, so it was just as cold and rainy inside as out, although the wind was less. Very odd. Anyway, we found C&A and did our economic duty and then Ricardo drove us back into town. We visited the Dolce Vita mall, which has a coffee bar made to look like a giant grand piano. Dad went to the giant electronics store and bought a new camera. Trust him to only twig his was dying the day AFTER we left Japan…

Then we pootled sights and shops until it was time for us to go to Reids Palace, where i had booked a table for dinner in their italian restaurant, which overlooks the bay. Needless to say, we sat indoors… After a ludicrously civilised but eyewateringly expensive meal, we returned to the ship and crashed out.

We were in Madeira from noon til noon, so the next day, mum and dad got up (into blazing sunshine, i kid you not) and went to see the Festival of Flowers. They had laid flower carpets all down the centre of the main street. I stayed in bed. When we sailed, we began to realise just how big the island is, and just how little of it we’ve seen, despite our many visits. The eastern end looked particularly rugged and magical. Oh well, that’s for next time, I guess. There was a sailaway party on deck and several people were in tears as it started to dawn on them that the next time they saw land, we’d be home.

The packing is a nightmare. Every time I think I’m done I realise there’s a whole other cupboard/drawer to do. It’s never-ending. It’s not going to all go in. I’ll have to buy another bag, just for the blinking presents. Do you have any idea how much space a singing goat takes up? Granted, that’s for me, but still, you get the point.

Luckily, the sea has been like glass. Even the Bay of Biscay and the Western Approaches, which is very unusual indeed. My friends on the Arcadia went through a few days before and sent me an email to say that they had had lots of bumps but they had ironed out most of them for me. And they were right. The Bay of Biscay was like a millpond. We took photos, it was so flat. No one would believe us otherwise! People tend to get off or on in Spain or Madeira and fly the last bit to the UK, just to avoid the Bay, so you can see that it is usually rather rough. Not this time. Cosmic payback for Madeira trying to blow us clean off the island, maybe.

And so, the end is near, etcetera, etcetera and so forth. Goodbye Aurora, you’ve been a wonderful home and we’ll all miss you dreadfully.

Right, now, what do i do with 8,209 photos?

Cape Town is lovely. We quite like Cape Town. If we could just stop P&O and every South African we ever meet blathering on about how dangerous it is, it would be ideal. South Africans seem to take a strange pride in how dangerous their country is. It’s all they talk about. I dare you. Next time you meet a South African, get them into conversation about their home country and I’ll place a standing bet of a pound that in less than five minutes, they’ll have mentioned the violence and crime where they’re from, and how dangerous it is to live there without barbed wire and dogs and armed response units. I’m starting to think it’s a form of camouflaged racism. They’re not allowed to say “coloured people*/black people are bad/evil/lazy/scary”, so instead they bleat on about crime and violence and car-jackings and this leads them to mention unemployment and poverty and… TADA… we’ve found the darker skinned residents in the conversation. Amazing. I suppose it could just be me being cynical, but that’s how it seems to a rather jaded outsider. In fact, the only local I’ve ever met who DOESN’T talk like this is our Cape Convoy guide, Rob, but more of him later.

*’coloured’ here means mixed-race. It’s a specific term. It doesn’t cover all non-whites, like it does in the USA.

Anyway, Cape Town is beautiful. Not the town itself, which is a city, like any other, with pretty bits and ugly bits and office blocks and concrete. The waterfront, purpose built for tourists, to corral them in a place that they can fill with security guards and tell them is safe day and night, is, of course, lovely. Bars, restaurants, live music, restored old buildings, and quite possibly one of the world’s most disorientating shopping malls, full of names such as Gant, Hugo Boss, Keedo and anyone else with the chutzpah to charge those sorts of prices.

You may be able to tell by my tone that we’ve been here before. We’ve done the open top bus ride before. We’ve been up Table Mountain on a clear day (which apparently we were inordinately lucky with). Most days the Tablecloth comes down, which is a cloud that pours over the top and obscures everything. On days when the wind is strong enough to blow away the cloud, it is too windy to take the cable car up and it’s closed! So getting up there on a clear day seems to be somewhat of a lottery. It certainly wasn’t to be for those here for the first time on this trip. This time we had two days in Cape Town, the first of which there was absolutely no wind whatsoever. The Tablecloth was beautiful from the ground, but I can’t imagine they saw much from the top. And the second day was windy so the cable car was closed. Ain’t Mother Nature grand?!

We booked a private tour on Day 1, because, once again, P&O didn’t do tours that covered all the things we wanted to do. I suppose you have to limit things when you have a 60 seater coach. Getting P&O passengers on and off of these things is a bit like herding cats, and I wouldn’t want to be a tour guide trying to do so! When we have a small car or taxi or minibus, a photo stop is a minute, maybe two. On a tour, it’s a minimum of fifteen. Five to get everyone off – some have mobility issues, bad knees and so on – five to push in front of each other to take the photo and another five to get them all back on again. And there will always be two short when they do the headcount, so you have to wait for them before you can leave. Unless you’re in parts of the world that have a tendency to drive off without you, such as Mumbai.

So, anyway, our private tour. Pay attention. The company is called Cape Convoy. They have no big busses, only little minibuses and vans. So no cat-herding required. The lovely Rob, with the Ilford accent (I kid you not, he’s an Essex boy), picked us up from the ship (once he’d found it, that is – they really plonked us in the back of beyond this time!). Because the marathon was on, he reversed the route of the tour he had planned, as there were a few road closures, although by the time we got up and going, the marathon was almost over anyway. They start at 5.30am to avoid the midday heat.

We drove first to Simon’s Town, which despite its naval port history, is one of the prettiest little towns I have seen in a long time, and certainly the prettiest I’ve ever found in South Africa. We stopped for a coffee and some photos with the statue of Just Nuisance, the Great Dane dog who is a legend around here. When it was a naval port, he used to get on the train and come down to the port to see the sailors, and he would drink with them and walk them home if they were too sloshed to make it unaided. When the train company threatened to shoot him for riding for free all the time (nice people!), he was formally inducted into the British Navy, which entitled him to free train travel and meant they couldn’t shoot him as he was a British officer. When he got married (!), he had a full British Naval honour guard, and when he died he was buried with full military honours, gun salute, the works. You’ve got to love the British colonial way of thinking. No one else would be mental enough to do stuff like that.

Our second stop was Boulders, the penguin sanctuary. They have built a wooden boardwalk over the beach so that you can walk among the nesting penguins without disturbing their nests, which are just tucked into the sand. Beautiful, silly little creatures. So enchanting. We could have watched them for hours. How they felt about the screaming toddlers and shouting Japanese tourists, however, is anybody’s guess. In the little shop, I suggested they might put some signs up asking the visitors to be quiet, but as I was making this suggestion to a man who thought that staring hard at a malfunctioning till would make it work, I’m not holding out much hope for the poor penguins. (For those who are wondering, his telekinetic powers failed him and he had to eventually press a button and start again, after which it worked just fine.)

Rob then drove us down the east coast of the Cape, through Fishoek, a nice little town, built along the curve of the half moon-shaped beach where every six years or so someone gets eaten by a great white shark in less than three feet of water. Nice. I asked why no shark nets and Rob’s reply was that they can swim under and get in but then they can’t get out. It becomes a sort of buffet!

And onwards down to the Capes. Yes, CapeS. There are two. Now, pay attention. The Cape of Storms is on False Bay. It is the point where the two oceans meet – the Indian and the Atlantic. It’s usually quite rough here. In fact, Vasco de Gama went into False Bay and couldn’t get out for three weeks, because the winds were so strong. He named it the Cape of Storms. The Cape of Storms is now called Cape Point. It is the southerly most point of Africa. When we were there, on Saturday, it was like a millpond. Not a ripple. Remember, I said there was no wind on Day 1. The British built a lighthouse on it. I climbed up to it. You can’t go in it, but you can reach the viewing platform built around it. 120 rather deep steps up and 120 rather deep steps down. Two days later I still hurt. But the view is astonishing. There are no words to describe the sight, there really aren’t. You can see forever in every direction. It’s spectacular.

There is a restaurant there, called, rather unimaginatively, the Two Oceans. Dad said it should be called The Restaurant At the End of the World, but maybe Douglas Adams didn’t make it over here. The food is lovely, the service is good, and the waitresses and serving staff came out and sang an African song to us, complete with all the harmonies and everything. Lovely. Then I climbed the lighthouse and came back down again and we drove to the Cape of Good Hope. The Cape of Good Hope is the southWESTerlymost point of Africa. It’s very nearby! But it’s at ground level, so to speak. You just drive up, walk over to the sign, get your picture tooken and get back in the car. There’s not a lot there, not even much of a beach, but it’s pretty cool, nonetheless.

From there via Chapman’s Peak, Llandudno and so on back up the western coast. The scenery is breathtaking. Rock and cliff formations, with virtually no greenery (too blowy for trees) except in the more sheltered bays. Just barren and beautiful with a few scrub bushes here and there. We came back to Cape Town via Bantry Bay (Botany Bay as was), Camps Bay, where the houses are built into such steep cliffs they have little individual elevators to get up to them and where you can see Robben Island in the distance (28 year home of Nelson Mandela and now a bird sanctuary). And back into Cape Town, where Rob dropped us at the shopping mall at the V&A Waterfront I mentioned earlier. Incidentally, the V&A waterfront is not named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. It’s named after Victoria and ALFRED, her SON, who was apparently a big fan of this part of the world and did much to develop it, presumably while Victoria did India and Albert did England, well, London, anyway. So it’s the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, which takes a bit of getting used to. Feels very odd to say.

So there you have it. Cape Convoy minibus tours. Superb. Interesting, informative, flexible and inexpensive. Ask for Rob, he’s brilliant.

Despite being utterly pooped, we did a little shop browsing and then retired to the Table Bay Hotel Atlantic Restaurant for dinner, which is WAY posher than it sounds. It’s a very old, very expensive hotel and the food is divine. It was during the meal that the wind started to blow, rattling the panels of the glass-roofed dining room above our heads. By the time we were back on the ship, it was pretty strong and we had trouble crossing the quay from the bus to the gangplank. It blew all night.

This meant that on Day 2, the boat trip we had postponed from Day 1 because of the marathon, out to Seal Island, had to be cancelled, as it was just too choppy. So we pootled around the shops and restaurants instead. Bought very little, but as it was Easter Sunday, there were Lindt people demonstrating chocolate-making in the Victoria Wharf, so at least there was some free chocolate! We came back to the ship about 4ish and I went to bed, as my exertions of the previous day were just starting to catch up with me. And just as I was dozing off, the Captain made an announcement. Due to the high winds (nearly 50 knots!), the port has been closed and we can’t leave. It’s just not safe. The estimate was that the winds would drop in the early hours of the morning, around 2am, so we would try and leave then. So instead of asking you to be back on board for 5.30pm, we are extending our stay to 11pm. Yay. Even after my nap there was no way I had the energy to go out partying, so we just went to dinner on board and then I went to bed at 10. It is now 6.30am and we are still here. and what is more, it looks pretty windy out (the mast webcam channel on the telly does have its uses!), so I reckon we may be here a good while longer… A fairly serious attack of wind, I think you’ll agree. We could be stuck here for DAYS!

How about this for a piece of bureaucratic stupidity? As a tourist, I am entitled to claim back the sales tax on the products I purchase in several countries, including South Africa. Duty Free is a wonderful thing, but you have to pay it and then claim it back, which is a bit trying. If I can even be bothered with the paperwork, that is. Anyway, in the purpose-built waterfront area, right next to the cruise terminal, there is a tax reclaim office. How brilliant is that? Perfect. But cruise passengers cannot use it. It’s for airport passengers only. Cruise passengers have to go into the centre of the city to make their claims. What kind of a moron puts the airport office by the water and the water office in the city?! Seriously?! Are you high?! Just astonishing. Just goes to show, you can never overestimate the stupidity of human beings. Whatever anyone may tell you, wherever you are in the world, the international language is not English, it’s Stupid, and most people speak it fluently.

For the more observant amongst you, who were wondering what I was doing awake at 6.30am, cast your minds back to the early editions of this blog. I mentioned I sleep a lot on cruise ships because of the rocking motion. Conversely, therefore, when it isn’t rocking, I find it hard to sleep. If we’re tied up and stationary, we aren’t rocking. I find it very difficult to sleep when we’re in port. Likewise, when I get back to the UK, it’ll be days before I get a decent night’s sleep.

(We later set sail at about 8.30am. I know this because when I woke at 9 we were pitching nicely.)(Remember the difference between pitching and rolling?)

Things I have learned on this cruise:

– Some basic Spanish
– About three phrases of Italian
– About three phrases of Welsh
– About three phrases of Chinese
– The designer label Salvatore Ferragamo does over 54% of its business in Asia and Japan. Of its 88 stores worldwide, 61 are in Asia and Japan.
– Some basics of neuroscience. No, really. It’s been fascinating.
– Art is the new retirement. Timmy Mallett, Dave Lee Travis. If in doubt, paint, or in the case of DLT, make photographic art. Funny old world…
– Maintaining a scrapbook is hard work. And one roll of sellotape is not enough to do the job.
– Taking a second credit card with you in case of emergencies is all very well and good, but losing the pin number is somewhat counterproductive…

This is getting a bit waffly so I think I’ll end here for now. Happy belated Easter to you all. Enjoy the snow.

Post script: 8.45pm

“This is the Bridge. Code Alpha. Code Alpha. Code Alpha. Deck 8 Photo Gallery.”

Oh dear. Code Alpha is Collapsed Passenger Probable Heart Attack.

Things you never want to see on a cruise ship #1. Both doctors. Running.

And now they’ve paged a Mrs someone. Presumably his wife. Not good. Not good at all…

Two ports in two days. Not as exhausting as three in three days, but fairly hectic nonetheless. Leaves no time for blogging, I assure you!

Mauritius first. We were moored in the container port. Again. Tiresome, isn’t it? And you’re just reading about it, you try living with it! Luckily, the container port isn’t far from town. Unluckily, there is a one-way system that means the shuttle bus has to drive all the way through the busiest part of town (read: solid traffic) to the other side to turn around to come back again to go into the waterfront area that can only be entered from one direction. Lovely bit of planning that, thanks. The purpose-built waterfront complex has a cruise berth, but there was a Costa ship parked in it. As far as I can tell from what I’ve heard from fellow passengers, Costa is basically similar to P&O (both owned by Carnival, of course), but with better parking spaces and terrible entertainment. So take your pick…

The waterfront complex is shops and cafes and stuff to please tourists, such as officially-regulated craft shops with labels saying “no child labour” and stuff. I bought my dodo and my t-shirt and postcards within minutes of arrival, which is nice, because it means I don’t have to think about it or remember to do it later (or forget, like I did in Burnie), I can just relax and enjoy the rest of the day. Got to buy a dodo in Mauritius (which is called Ile de Maurice by the French). Just got to. I like visiting a place called Morris. Sounds friendly. It IS friendly. They’re very nice people. They all learn English, French and Creole at school, so there are no communication issues whatsoever, which makes a VERY refreshing change, I can tell you. It’s a funny place though. The currency is the Mauritian RUPEE, I kid you not, there are 25 to the pound, roughly, and the writing on the bank notes is in English, French and SANSKRIT. Keep up here. They are almost all of Indian descent, they mostly speak French and they drive on the LEFT and all the road signs are in English. Still with me? The cars are even right-hand drive, just like the UK. Trust me, it’s all VERY odd.

Anyway, we pootled around the town a little and then it started to drizzle* so we dived in a cab and went to the Pamplemousse Gardens. Good idea. It’s raining? Let’s go to the most exposed and least sheltered place for miles around. Smart. Got SOAKED. Quite refreshing, though, after the stifling heat and humidity of the morning. It did clear the air a bit and once you got sheltered, it was still hot enough that we were virtually dry in a matter of minutes. The drive out to Pamplemousse was twenty minutes, which allowed us to see the real Mauritius, rather than just the capital city version. It seems like a fairly poor country, although there are modern-looking roads and schools and so on. Mauritius is an independent country, consisting, in fact of three islands, not one – the other two are Rodrigues and St Brandon. So now you know. The Dutch arrived, introduced sugar plantations, slavery and rats, killed all the Dodos and then left. The French used it as a base for attacking English ships, which, funnily enough, didn’t go down well, so the English booted them out and took over in 1814. They abolished slavery and introduced paid workers from India (hence the Sanskrit and rupees) and then in 1968 Mauritius became independent. The capital, Port Louis, was founded by the French Governor, Mahe de Labourdonnais. Did you spot that? Mahe (pronounce Ma -hay). As in the capital of the Maldives. See? It’s all linked around here. Everything is connected. His name will pop up again in Reunion, as well, have no fear. He got around. A LOT. English is the official language and they are the world’s third largest exporters of woollen knitwear. Like I said, it’s all VERY odd!

When we got back from the beautiful but rainy Pamplemousse Gardens, we stopped for a crepe (well, when in French-speaking countries…) which took ages and was STONE COLD when it arrived. It’s obviously called the Sunset Cafe because you order at noon and get your food at sunset. Seriously, I’m not a fan of hot food, I like tepid or cold food, always, but this was virtually refrigerated, it was so cold. Shame, because they were otherwise very nice indeed! The service at this place was shocking. When they can’t even be bothered to bring you the bill, you know you’re in the presence of the really apathetic. It took us the best part of an hour to order, eat and pay for two Oranginas, a Diet Coke and three identical plates of pancakes. If we’d ordered anything more complex, we’d probably still be sitting there! On the plus side, they allowed us to pay partly in rupees and partly in US dollars, so we reboarded the ship with no local currency left whatsoever. This is a Good Thing, because, whether or not you would LIKE to come back, you have to face the possibility that you won’t. Ever. So leftover currency is simply an exercise in futile clutter, and whilst I’m sure the RNLI** would appreciate it, none left is simpler.

I hadn’t realised how much the heat had affected me until after dinner, when I suddenly realised I was completely worn out. So I was in bed by 8.30pm. Slept til 3. Swore at the ceiling for an hour and then had some very, very odd dreams until my alarm went off at 7.30. Gotta get up. It’s Reunion!

I was booked on an excursion today, which is something we don’t often say any more! My parents just took the shuttle to St Gilles les Bains, the only deliberately seasidey touristy place. It was apparently very pleasant. Trouble was, due to the change in itinerary, this stop was bumped to a Sunday, and Reunion is a Christian country so everything was shut. But they had a nice time anyway. I got up at the crack of dawn to catch the tour bus to the volcano. There are two main volcanoes on Reunion, one which is extinct and one which erupts every year. A little bit. Not explosive or dangerous, but the lava flows in 2007 ran down into the sea and extended the island by 800 acres. So active enough, thank you very much. Piton de la Fournaise is, however, not the highest point on the island. This honour goes to Piton les Neiges, the extinct one, which is high enough that it snows on the top at night, but not high enough that it doesn’t melt in the morning! Apparently, you need another 2,000 ft before you can ski! We had the most wonderful driver (Fabrice) and the best tour bus guide in the world (Jean-Paul). He told us history, politics, civil service structure, exports, imports, economy, employment, religions, you name it, I now know it.

Reunion is a French department, which means that it is officially part of mainland France. And it is VERY French. They use the Euro, they drive on the right and they have that rigid thinking that I’ve talked about before, where if you don’t ask the right question, you don’t get the right answer.

For example, if, in England, for example, you asked a shop assistant, “Do you take US dollars?”, you’d probably get an answer along the lines of “No, but we can take credit cards, if that helps”. In France and Reunion, it’s just “No”. You then have to ask a fresh question “Do you take plastic?”, to which you will get a yes response. The French don’t volunteer information the way we do. It’s a funny feeling to be back in that way of thinking, although I was so enjoying being able to speak French all day, nothing could bother me.

The plains leading to the volcano and the volcano itself are completely barren. Nothing grows. The guide compared it to the surface of the Moon and it’s not hard to see why. It is breathtakingly beautiful and I would recommend that everyone goes to see it. This will please the Reunionais people, although the French like to keep Reunion as their own secret hideaway, so they’ll be none too chuffed if all my readers start descending on the place! But, seriously, if you get the chance, you MUST go. It’s not very energetic, physically, even though the air is a little thin at 9,000 feet, but do go. Really do. And if you hire a coach from Transports Mooland (I kid you not), ask for Jean-Paul as your guide. He’s hilarious. He tells jokes, he sings songs, we had the most amazing time. One of my favourite lines was when we needed to cross the road to get to the viewing platform. He asked us to be careful of the traffic, as he didn’t want us to get run over and damage any French cars. Brilliant bloke, can’t praise him highly enough.

We drove around virtually the entire island during the course of the day, only missing out the far south-east corner. We even went to the capital, Saint Denis, which, being a Sunday, was completely shut. Pretty colonial buildings, though, so it was an interesting drive. The island completely shuts down on Sundays. There aren’t even any markets! This surprised me greatly, as when I lived in France, I did my weekly shop on Sunday at the market. Here, there are no markets. Nothing. Luckily, this didn’t include our restaurant, museum or volcano gift shop stops, so I am fully provisioned as regards postcards and t-shirts! Had you worried there for a second! However, the price of stamps from here was extortionate (a quid each, seriously?!), so I won’t post them til South Africa. I may get home before them. Now there’s a sobering thought…

The fact is that the end is nigh, people. We are a week short of the three month mark and everyone is talking about going home. Swapping email addresses, talking about school or work or laundry or just how much they don’t want to be on the last stretch. I don’t envy Bobby Davro. He’s going to be playing to a bunch of seriously depressed people. They’re going to be a tough crowd. Some are even closer to the end. They’re getting off in Cape Town. Even if they’re doing an onward excursion for a week or two, they won’t be on the ship any more. Good grief, that’s depressing. I’m sitting here realising all the people I have to say goodbye to over the next couple of days. Granted, there are over 800 people doing the whole thing, but still, there are an awful lot of goodbyes to come.

Cruise friendships are powerful stuff. Somewhat similar to university friendships, in a way. You spend all day every day with someone. You go out to eat or clubbing or to the theatre together EVERY NIGHT for three months. That’s more than I see some of my best and closest friends in an entire year. Even if you skip the nights before ports(to be fresh in the morning) and the nights after ports (to recover), with 39 ports, that’s 78 nights lost (not all of which were, of course, otherwise I wouldn’t have been so hungover in Piraeus!). So even if you skip 78 nights out, that still leaves 26 nights out with your mates. How many people do you go out with 26 times in a year? I can think of people I HOLIDAY with that I don’t spend that much time with! And then there’s the daytime. You bump into people on deck, by the pool, in the restaurant, at activities, on tour buses. A cruise is a wonderful thing if you’re a sociable person. When I lived on campus at university, I used to have to build in extra time to walk from A to B to allow for stoppage time when I bumped into people, something I really miss in the real world. But on a cruise ship, the same rules apply. You need to be somewhere at 3 that’s a 4 minute walk away? Leave at quarter to. You might just make it on time. Maybe…

So saying goodbye to cruise friends is quite distressing and is often a terrible wrench. I still miss the friends who got off in Singapore 1, for heaven’s sake! You come from all corners of the globe, not just the UK. I’ve made friends from Australia, South Africa, Malta…You may never see these people again, even the Brits. The chances of me ever seeing the ones who live in Cumbria, for example, bearing in mind I live in London, are pretty remote, let’s face it.

So the goodbyes begin today. People are packing, planning, thinking ahead to real life, planning flights, paying bills. There is very little joy left on board. Like I said, when Bobby Davro gets on, he’s really got his work cut out.

Great, I’m SO depressed now, I think I’m going back to bed.

* Welcome to the tropics. Bring an umbrella.

** The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is the British charity that funds all the UK’s lifeboats without any Government help. They accept any amounts of any currency whatsoever, so if you see a collection box or boat, you can put in all your leftover currency and they will convert it into usable funds.

We like Phuket. We’ve been here several times before. Including two months after the tsunami, when the waves had sucked all the sand off the beach and we had to climb up sandbags to get to the promenade. Phuket is a tender port, so we come ashore in little boats and walk along a floating pontoon to get to the beach. It is VERY shallow. Nowadays, though, other than the occasional evacuation route notice, you’d never know anything had happened here. There’s no sign whatsoever of the devastation, other than the words of those who lost loved ones. They rebuilt, in concrete this time, shipped in a few hundred tonnes of sand to rebuild the beach, and life goes on.

The weather was even more exactly as you’d expect than you’d expect. Brilliant sunshine, slight breeze, some humidity, but nothing ghastly. The only niggle was that it was 40 degrees c in the shade. Now, I don’t know how many of my readers have ever experienced 40 degrees in the shade (I think it equates to about 96 or 98 Fahrenheit), but it’s quite an experience. Even the locals were complaining about the heat! Luckily, all the rebuilding money and donations paid for plentiful air conditioning, so, although they’ve done the overhead electricity wires thing like Japan (which I suppose makes sense if you’re worried about tsunamis…), which isn’t very pretty and mars the view now and again, there are no shortage of places to duck into for a breather.

We walked along the front, past cafes we’ve been to in the past, and ended up at a restaurant we’d also been to before. We had some drinks (lots of them!) and then realised we were hungry so we ordered lunch. I had Pad Sie Yiew, which is yummy. It’s a sort of stir fry with really wide noodles and pieces of chicken. Rather like Pad Thai, but cooked in soy rather than tamarind sauce. Hope that makes sense… Then we cut through the Holiday Inn Resort which is about half a mile by half a mile, I reckon, to the main shopping street. After the tsunami they built a purpose-built market area, with stalls and cafes, and it’s a really lovely place, so we crossed the road, carefully, and we wandered through the aisles. The first shop on the right when you enter Patong Top is… the Hello Kitty shop. Oops, may have accidentally bought some more handbags… oh dear. Much to my parents annoyance, I have also found that, since I lost two dress sizes last year, I can now get into clothes in this part of the world. Just. So there were several stops involving the trying on of sundresses and the like.

Prices have risen considerably in this part of the world. I mentioned this when I was talking about Hong Kong, I think, but it really is very noticeable here. One lady off the ship that I spoke to estimates that prices have tripled in the past six years, so it’s not just my imagination! Of course, the weak pound doesn’t help either. I just hope that pay has increased as well.

By now, mum was starting to feel the effects of the heat, so we retreated to the Marriott for a cold drink and quite probably the nicest loos on the island, before wandering along the beach back to the tenders. Patong Beach is aimed at tourists, very much so. It’s not “real” Thailand by any stretch of the imagination. But it is a wonderful little town with several miles of beautiful beaches. Phuket Town isn’t in the same league. It’s just an ordinary town for the locals. There’s little or nothing for tourists to see, do or even buy. We didn’t go into Phuket Town this time, but our tablemates did, and they were not impressed. It’s almost as if the money and the effort was put into repairing the places damaged by the tsunami and the other places, further inland, were left behind, receiving nothing whatsoever. But let’s face it, if you’re a tourist, you’re going to the seaside, aren’t you? You’re unlikely to go inland much. So stick to the edges of Phuket. Explore, by all means, but don’t expect the inland areas to match up to the beauty and effort that has been put into the coastal bits. There are watersports aplenty and several large resort hotels, so most of what you need is there. But go soon, because if prices keep rising at the rate they are at the moment, pretty soon, it’ll cease to be the cheap idyll it once was and will become as expensive and exclusive as the Maldives.

Talking of which… the Maldives. As mentioned previously, we have diverted to the Maldives because the Seychelles are considered too risky. We managed to get on an excursion to an island resort that P&O use frequently. Only 100 got to go there, 50 in the morning and 50 in the afternoon, although there were other excursions available to other islands. When we got there, it looked idyllic. All grass-covered gazebos and wooden walkways stretching out over the water. Just like the photos you’ve seen. We were shown to the bar and given a payment card and told we could use all the facilities on the island. This surprised us, because we’d been told we couldn’t use the restaurants. Dad clarified this with the manager and said “Right, well, we’ll go to the pool for a bit before lunch”. “Oh no,” says the staff member nearby. “You can’t use the pools”. The ensuing argument lasted the best part of an hour. They even tried to force us to use the children’s pool for eleven dollars a head, instead of the proper pool for free. Bearing in mind we had already paid fifty quid a head for a four hour visit, there was no way we were parting with any more money, and we told them so. Eventually, I got sick of the shilly-shallying, informed the bloke that I would be in the pool and if he wanted more money, he’d have to talk to P&O and left.

It didn’t end there, of course. When we got to the pool, there was a bar. Mum wanted a cup of tea, but because she can’t have caffeine, she carries her own decaffeinated teabags. She asked for a cup of hot water. Guess what the answer was? No, you’re not a resident. Seriously, P&O sends ships here all the time. How hard can it be to establish with the hotel staff what we can and cannot do or have? Denying someone a cup of hot water, which should be free anyway, is just farcical. Anyway, they went for a walk on the beach and I swam in the pool and burned my shoulders for a couple of hours and then we left. It could have been utterly perfect. Instead it was very pleasant but marred irrevocably by a third of our time being wasted arguing the toss.

As regards the actual travel bit, we have a lot of sea days coming up – there are only about half a dozen ports left and four weeks to go. I don’t think we’ll see sea colours anything like what we saw in the Maldives – so pale turquoise and clear you could see the bottom even when it was ten feet deep. Just astonishing. There are almost daily porpoise and dolphin sightings now, and some people have been huge manta rays gliding past, as well as shoals of smaller fish now and again. I wonder what they think of us, this huge, loud interloper charging through their home. Mind you, it’s a bit bumpy at the moment and we are both pitching and rolling, so perhaps the sea is trying to block out the noise we make so as not to disturb them too much. It’s funny. The webcam TV channel shows us going up and down and they’re playing chillout flute and piano music over the top. Very soothing and strangely hypnotic at the same time. It looks like a beautiful day outside. I hope it’s nice where you are.

We asked a taxi to take us to the Meridien hotel. He took us to the Mandarin instead. Oh well, close enough! The Mandarin Orchard is a beautiful modern hotel with a restaurant so good you have to book to get in on a weekday lunchtime. I dread to think how far ahead you’d have to book for dinner! We ate in the Triple Three cafe, where I had to take a photo of the cake display, because it looked more like art than food! Mum had a piece of quiche, dad had a giant cookie and I tried a Green Tea Mousse, which was very nice but was sweeter than I was expecting, so dad finished it for me.  We then used their beautiful loos (although mine flushed itself three times while I was trying to use it, which was VERY disconcerting!) and then headed out onto Orchard Road – shopping mecca of the world. It was insanely hot and very humid, as always in Singapore, and for some reason, the streets were extremely crowded. Some store called OG was having a members only sale and everyone in Singapore was apparently a member except us. The queue went down the block and everyone came out laden with purchases. Sort of like trying to walk past Primark during the first morning of their sale! Except OG bags are still plastic. Tut tut.

Once the novelty of the crowds had worn off (which didn’t take long!), and we’d bought couple of cheap watches (mine died yesterday and no amount of CPR/new batteries could save it – it had a good life, though – it was my present for passing my GCSEs!) we grabbed a cab to Funan Digital Life Mall. This is the home of fixed price electronics in Singapore. You can go to Sim Lim Square and haggle, but you’d have to check the contents of the box you receive and the warranties are less reliable, apparently. So Funan it was. I bought a small HP Mini notebook, pink, of course, and a padded slip cover to protect it, pink, of course. I was going to buy an Acer One, but the salesman said the HP was the same spec with a better warranty and fifty dollars cheaper, and I couldn’t argue with him on any point, so that’s what I bought. We grabbed a bite to eat and then headed to the Harbour Front.

This is a massive shopping mall built right on the quayside next to where the cruise ships dock. However, “local” shipping lines take priority, so nowadays we have to moor out at the container port and get a shuttle bus into town. This is also absolutely nothing to do with the fact that this is probably WAY cheaper for P&O. Nothing to do with it, AT ALL. No, sirreebob. Not a bit of it. Especially in view of the fact that this is our second visit to Singapore on this cruise. Not at all. Nope. The shuttle bus went from and to the Harbour Front Mall. Nice touch that, P&O, thanks. Not only don’t take us to the beautiful purpose-built cruise terminal and dump us so far out of town in the commercial port that it takes twenty minutes to drive from the ship to the port gate (no, really, we timed it) and THEN twenty minutes into town, but then drive us to that purpose-built cruise terminal and mall so we know EXACTLY what we’re missing. Thanks for that, thanks a bunch.

We went back to the ship and divested ourselves of our (my) purchases, which considering their littleness were getting surprisingly heavy! Then we caught the evening shuttle bus to Clarke Quay. Yes, the evening shuttle went to and from a different place to the day shuttle. No potential for lost and confused passengers there then!

At Clarke Quay we found a beautiful and thankfully air conditioned Chinese restaurant called Peony-Jade. The food was lovely, but the portions were VAST. We ordered the duck, but when it came, not only were the pancakes triangular, which was a first for us, but they insisted on making them up for us! This was a little irksome because it meant not only having to stare at it for a good ten minutes before getting our hands on it (we only got them when they were all made up), but having to explain who wanted spring onion, who didn’t, and so on. Just give it to us and let us do it! Luckily, for half of the duck, they gave us the bits and let us do it ourselves, otherwise we could well still be sitting there! Dad and Mum had a shredded beef dish and I ordered a chicken in sweet lime dressing, which, if you eat Chinese food in the UK, was as near to lemon chicken as makes no difference. It was delicious. The rice was very colourful, because they filled it with slices of spring onion and what looked like crab meat (which is reddy-pink for the unfamiliar). When I asked, he said it was fake crabmeat, made from flour. What’s the point in that?! I find that hard to comprehend. If I order a vegetarian dish, making it clear I don’t want any fish or meat in it, why would you put in PRETEND meat or fish?! Can’t process the thinking behind that one, I’m afraid. Deeply odd.

All delicious, nonetheless, but if you’re ever in Singapore, DON’T EAT THERE. No, really. Don’t eat at the Peony-Jade. Why? Because they con you when the bill comes. Dad calls it Tourist Tax. They poured tea for three, despite the fact that we ordered for two. They charged us for three, despite mum sending hers away untouched. Then, they gave us little towelettes to clean our fingers after the pancakes. And charged us for those too! The overall damage for the uninvited extras was around six dollars, or a little under 4.5% of the total bill. Now, they have no danger of repeat business from us, we’re from the cruise ship, they know we’re only around for one day or two at the most, but that kind of behaviour is not to be encouraged. Tourist Tax isn’t all that common any more (this is the ironic name given to that extra that appears when you try to pay for something whilst clearly not being a local), but I still think it’s indefensible. Charging for a towelette? We didn’t ASK for a towelette, you GAVE us a towelette. We would have been happy with a boil of water with a slice of lemon in it! Utterly disgraceful.

So that’s the tip of the day: NEVER EAT IN THE PEONY-JADE, CLARKE QUAY IN SINGAPORE. Don’t eat at Quayside Seafood which is next door and owned by the same people. I imagine they con you there too.

Anyway, Clarke Quay is AMAZING. It’s a beautiful harbour/marina type thing but on a river, not a dead end, with restaurants along the water’s edge. Live music coming from every door, covered pedestrian streets so that you can sit outside. Really vibrant and buzzing. NOT my parents’ sort of place at all! But they liked it as a thing to look at – it was the “noise” they couldn’t handle. So after a wander, we headed back to the shuttle bus and back to the ship. We got back about 11.15. We weren’t due to leave port until 2am, but enough is enough! It was a long day!

In case I’ve forgotten to explain, there’s a reason why we stayed in Singapore until 2am. We never normally stay in a port past midnight, because it costs a whole day extra in mooring fees (roughly £50,000, give or take). However, a few days ago, the Captain was informed of a recent “threat to oil shipping”(read: pirates)  in the Malacca Straits, so he negotiated with Southampton and they said ‘Stay late and then go like hell. Go through the Straits at full pelt. Just to be on the safe side’. So that’s what we’re doing. It’s now 5am and I can’t sleep, so I can tell you that we are currently passing between some islands (there’s rather a lot of those around here…) and only doing 10 knots, but once clear of them, we will be going at full tilt (about 25-27 knots) for the rest of the night. Here endeth Singapore 2.

Spanish class today was interrupted and curtailed by announcements from the bridge. Which was forgivable because we were passing Krakatoa. How cool is that?! Unfortunately, this meant twenty or more minutes of blathering nonsense from the onboard speaker who twittered inanely over the tannoy system, talking and talking without actually saying anything. Knowing when it exploded (27 August 1883) is all very well and good, but he didn’t seem to know much about it! He mentioned the size of the explosion and how far away it was heard (3000 miles), but I didn’t hear him even mention the nuclear winter that ensued or WHY the eruption was noteworthy. The explosion blew the island apart (which he didn’t mention) and created a new one, called Child of Krakatoa, which is an active volcano that spews out enough gunk to cause it to grow in height by 16 feet a year. That’s a centimetre a day in height. A foot since we set sail. Currently. Right now. As we speak. It’s a foot taller now than when we left England. Wow. How DEEPLY cool is that? Instead he just kept talking about each US warship sunk near here by the Japanese, which although is important to know and appreciate, seemed of limited relevance when we could be talking about a volcanic eruption that caused death and destruction all over the globe. Seriously? Could you not maybe do SOME research before you do this stuff? How hard can it be? You probably only mentioned the thing about the film “Krakatoa: East of Java” being dodgy because Krakatoa is WEST of Java (seriously – did no one in Hollywood get fired for that?!) because the Captain said it last night in his announcement. Most people who have heard of Krakatoa know about the nuclear winter. How can you not, when you’re being PAID to know this kind of stuff?! Really? Crops failed, people starved to death. Hello? Duh? Maybe just one iddy biddy mention of the dust cloud? Blocking out the sun ALL OVER THE FACE OF THE EARTH? For MONTHS? Affecting harvests, tree growth, human and animal health and growth, even the colour of the sky in contemporary paintings? Just one? No? No mention of the dust layer in the tree ring record? In EUROPE? Or in the Arctic ice record? Nope. Just lists of dead Americans. No idea. Not a ruddy clue. *sigh*

Anyway, Krakatoa. I’ve seen it. It’s amazing. It just looks like a triangular/ pyramidal island with trees on, but when you know what happened here, it’s awe-inspiring. And very slightly unnerving. After all, we were VERY close… *gulp*

Geraldton. Our last stop in Australia before the home stretch. Never heard of it? No, neither had we. This was P&O UK’s maiden visit, which is always nice, because they make that little bit more of a fuss over us! There was a welcome tent on the quayside, a free shuttle bus service and free refreshments at the hotel next to the shuttle bus stop in town. All very nice. Trouble is, that was about it.

Don’t get me wrong, Geraldton is a pleasant little town, but it has very little of interest. It’s a beaches and watersports mecca, which is all very well and good if you’re into lying on beaches or giving yourself saltwater enemas behind speeding boats, but if you’re not that sort of person, you may struggle here. There were tours out into the countryside – which is apparently breathtaking with gorges and national parks and stuff – and the possibility of a passing visit to Hutt River Principality (a group of farms that declared independence when new Australian wheat quotas threatened to bankrupt them). They have their own stamps and money and are, for Australian tax purposes, non-doms. No, really! They had to declare war on the Commonwealth of Australia to get it, but they ended hostilities after four days, so no harm done. I would have loved to have gone there. This kind of thinking fascinates me. But it was too far out of town for such a brief visit.

HMAS Sydney II sank near here after a confrontation with a German ship in 1941. All 645 souls were lost. There is a beautiful memorial on the hill overlooking the town, which is a metal domed canopy made of flying birds. Beautiful. What the Germans were doing down here, I have no idea. The British tested their first nuclear device nearby and when Skylab crashed to Earth, it was near here. Donald Campbell got one of his water speed records nearby as well. For an isolated mining town, it’s had a lot of visitors!

They have some interesting thinking here, too. When a boat was recently seized in a criminal investigation, they stripped it of all the noxious chemical bits and then sank it to form an artificial reef for the marine flora and fauna. I LIKE that kind of thinking. That’s cool.

Nice place, though. Very pleasant little town. Highly recommended. But don’t eat at the Freemasons Hotel or the attached Gilroys Irish Bar. I’m told the Tides restaurant is nice. Try there instead.

Albany was a wonderful little town. Picturesque, lovely architecture, friendly people, interesting history. The only niggles that marred the day were: (a) The Ulysses Club were in town (3000 bikers with the motto “Grow Old Disgracefully”) which meant noisy bikes and every single photo I took had a bloomin’ bike in it and (b) we only had half a day. Back on Board was 1pm, for pity’s sake. I know the town is small, but it’s not THAT small! Still it meant a leisurely afternoon on board eating Magnums and napping, so not all bad news then…

Today was Fremantle and Perth. Lovely towns, both. Did a tour in the morning, which consisted of a coach trip to Perth, a little tour thereof, then a boat trip back up the Swan River to Fremantle and a coach tour of Fremantle. It was 38 in the shade today, which was so hot even the locals were complaining. I think it’s equivalent to about 100 in English money. We wandered a bit, shopped a little and had a lunch in a lovely little tea room. We pootled a little further and then Mum and Dad caught a heritage tram (really a trolleybus, not a tram) back to the ship. I took a taxi up to Cottesloe Beach, where there was a sculpture festival on the beach, which we had driven past on the way to Perth. It was truly astonishing to see people sitting on the beach in between large modern sculptures, leaning on them and eating their picnics in the shade of them. You know by now how I feel about public art and it was a truly wonderful experience.

All the sculptures were for sale, and the catalogue included a comment from each artist. One, Ken Sealey, had done a piece which was a swimmer made of layered plywood suspended in a block of laminated safety glass. Think Hirst and sharks and impossibility of death etc. But the swimmer isn’t in formaldehyde but encased in green glass. The comment the artist gave was as follows: “We have salt in our tears, sweat and blood. We came from the sea. We can never return. We are trapped in our ideas.” I’m still trying to decide whether this is the most pretentious thing I’ve ever read or quite possibly the most profound…

Melbourne was a lovely day. Mum’s old schoolfriend, Hannah, and her daughter, Jenny, met us at the port. They’re lovely. And I met up with a friend I made on the internet about three or four years ago, Fiona. She was lovely too! We all piled into Jenny’s people carrier (she has four kids so…) and they drove us around town showing us the sights and the architecture (old and new). Then we drove into the Dandenong Hills, via Pin Oak Court (yes, Neighbours’ Ramsey Street!). We had a lovely lunch, served to us, oddly, by a lovely bloke from Shropshire. Then we boarded the Puffing Billy, a small gauge single line steam train that took us from Belgrave to Lakeside, where Jenny met up with us in the people carrier. I love steam trains. I have no idea why, but they just make my heart stop. They’re so beautiful, they smell so good and they make such wonderful noises. When it was waiting at the station and picking up steam pressure, prior to departure, our engine was making noises just like Ivor the Engine and when we got to a steep incline, you could hear him saying “I know I can, I know I can, I know I can”. Stupidly enjoyable and amazing views across the countryside above the city. Surprisingly green, this part of Australia. I’ve always imagined Oz to be more Alice Springs/ Uluru/ bush-like, but this bit is actually very green indeed.

Adelaide was brilliant. Despite the 40 minute drive into the city (and, ergo, back again) and the fact that it was a Sunday, so the Central Market and several other shops were closed, the architecture was interesting (again with the art deco and some really interesting modern stuff literally next to beautiful old Victorian and Edwardian frilly bits), the people were lovely, the clothes were expensive but available in my size (so it would have been rude not to buy them, after they’d gone to all that trouble…) and the weather was lovely. We were predicted 71 (19/20ish) and 60% chance of rain. It actually was over 80 (28/29) and sunny and the rain didn’t come down until after 4, when we were already on our way back to the ship. There is a circular bus route in the centre of town which is every half hour, every day and completely FREE. (If you’re in Adelaide, you’re looking for the 99C route.) We took a ride on it, which allowed us to see more of the city without our legs falling off. We were all particularly intrigued by a series of thirty foot inflatable astronauts climbing over several of the buildings and standing in the parks. Advertising for the Adelaide Fringe Festival, apparently, but very entertaining to find when you turn a corner! The little girl astronauts had pink skirts on their spacesuits! Very cute.

Ships have two main kinds of movement: pitch and roll. If you’re standing in the middle, facing forward, pitch is front to back up and down. Like boats do in cartoons, or the little car does on the Bupa advert. Up the hill and down the other side. Like the start of a rollercoaster, for want of a better analogy. Rolling is side to side. The left side goes up as the right side goes down and then down as the right side goes up. My cabin only creaks when we’re doing both at once, pitching AND rolling, which doesn’t happen very often because the captain usually turns into the wind/waves to reduce movement.  Anyway, now we have two sea days as we traverse the Australian Bight towards Albany. Bit bumpy today. It’s funny. I don’t THINK this ship is made of wood. It seems to be all metal and stuff. Yet when the ship moves in certain ways, it creaks just like a wooden ship. If you’ve ever seen Hornblower or Amistad other seafaring films or shows, you’ll know the sound. Maybe it’s the wooden wardrobes?!

Brisbane is AMAZING. It is beautiful, modern, clean, interesting, historical, friendly and is the first place in the southern hemisphere I have ever considered as a possible place to live. Just wonderful. We met our cousin, who drove us around a bit. We then had brunch with him and then went back to the ship to catch our afternoon tour. We got a guided coach tour of the interesting bits in the centre of town, followed by a paddle steamer trip up the river that runs through the centre of the city. The whole thing was wonderful, although the full Devonshire cream tea on the boat seemed a bit odd!

If anyone is wondering what particularly got to me about Brisbane, it’s the public art. I LOVE public art, it’s a passion of mine. Well, all art affects me, but public art is so exciting. Brisbane has a sculpture on almost every street corner. It’s extraordinary. I tried to photograph as many as I could, and I got even more by accident just by snapping buildings and not noticing what was in front of them! Seriously, there’s sculpture and art and interesting architecture on every street. The place is amazing. Loved it. HAVE to come back here. HAVE to.

We got to Sydney early because we had to do repairs which we’re not supposed to know about or talk about because travelling in that condition probably breaches several maritime laws.  Suffice to say, we arrived at midnight, instead of 8am. This meant that I could get off, meet up with Simon and Guy and go out for a drink. We got turned away from the Star City casino – the security guard either doesn’t like English people, or goatee beards, or gay men, or check shirts, or, oh, I don’t know. He said Guy had had too much to drink. Two glasses of wine with dinner four hours previously hardly constitutes too much to drink. Maybe he just didn’t understand that he was listening to an English accent, not a drunk Australian! Anyway, we found a pub nearby and we had a great time just hanging out and catching up. Got to bed about 6am.

Met up again for lunch at a pancake place on the Rocks, which served me beef ribs which turned out to be roughly half a cow. I managed half. Literally half. Heartbreakingly delicious, though. I wished I had the room to eat the rest of it, but there was no way! Then I dragged them both on an open top bus tour, which is my new favourite way to see new cities. They showed me some stuff they’d found that I wouldn’t otherwise have seen, including an amazing fountain in the shape of a spiral. We went to QVB (Queen Victoria Buildings) which is a seriously posh shopping centre that was once described as the most beautiful shopping centre in the world. It was amazing. It was carpeted! Seriously, I kid you not! And the loos contained the biggest toilet cubicles I have ever seen. Astonishing. It has that over-ornate beauty that you only get with Victorian and similar era architecture. It looks rather similar to Harrods, but designed by someone who had a real love for curlicues and extra bits. Even the clocks were astonishing. About twenty foot long, suspended from the glass roof and so over ornate, I can’t even begin to describe them. You’ll have to wait for the photos, I’m afraid. Then back to the Rocks for dinner with my parents and then Simon, Guy and I went to Darling Harbour for a drink at Pontoon, which is a wonderful bar. I heartily recommend it. The view across the harbour is amazing.

So my day in Sydney was the best part of forty-eight hours long.  We sailed late, because we mislaid a crew member (and eventually sailed without him/her) at about 1ish.