P&O have done it again. The shuttle bus, we were told, would take us to Merritt Square Mall. It did, but it went via the beach, Walmart and SOME of the shuttle buses also went to another mall called The Cove. Yet another selfish, thoughtless farce from the P&O Arcadia Excursions Desk. Damn every hair on your heads. Some people will NEVER pass this way again, this is their only chance to see the place. Tell us the truth about what we can see and how we can get there. Is that really so much to ask? Disgusting.

Welcome to Port Canaveral. A shop stop. You may recall that I was supposed to be going Astronaut Training here, but that was cancelled too, so that’s it. All there is out here is NASA, nature reserves and shops. There is a lot of water here, a large proportion of which is protected wetlands. The land is linked to other bits of land by narrow causeways with impeccably smooth roads.

P&O parked us a long way out. Granted, it wasn’t entirely their fault this time. This just happened to be where they put the cruise ships, although of the various berths available, it did feel like we had the one that was furthest out of all.

So I went to the mall and mum and dad went out on a nature cruise. We were supposed to meet at the mall later, using texts to communicate. However, their phones couldn’t pick up a signal, so none of my messages went through. I was expecting them around 1pm. I found them at quarter past two, by which time my mind was racing and I was about to return to the ship to search the Medical Centre for them.

In the meantime, I used the free wifi and ate some lovely Chinese food in the food court. But by the time we’d done some shopping, it was time to get the shuttle back to the ship (the last shuttle was, again, at 4pm, despite the fact that we didn’t sail til nearly six). No beach, no Walmart, no time for anything. That’s it. That’s Port Canaveral. If you come here, go to NASA. Otherwise, don’t come. I will leave you with a photo of a dubiously-named motel we passed.

Shaken awake at ten to six in the morning. Literally. My cabin is vibrating. The bed is vibrating. I’ve never heard a noise like it. It sounds like the ship is about to explode. Luckily, the pitch of the noise is constant. If it was rising, I’d be dressed and ready for lifeboats by now (it’s now quarter past six). The noise stopped at about ten past and then I had to wait for the Night Supervisor to come and tell me he had no idea what caused it but would try and find out. At least he heard it, himself, this time, so we can skip the “hallucinating passenger” section of proceedings, which accompanies every single complaint. I’m also not the only person who contacted Reception, which helps. Apparently a whole two other cabins rang up and said they too were being shaken apart. Usually, they say “it’s just you and only you and maybe it’s a problem with your cabin, we’ll send someone round”, when it quite clearly is the whole blooming ship (the church bells, for example).

It is astonishing just how vacuous and insolent the girl on Reception managed to sound when I rang her about it, and at precisely the same time. She really couldn’t have cared less if the sky was falling in. I was just another annoying passenger ringing her and making her life difficult. If I was in a more petulant mood (and at 6am, I must confess, I am fairly petulant already), I’d say the first time I rang her, she hung up on me, but as I’m feeling momentarily charitable, I’ll say she was just rushing to answer another call. I can’t help but wonder if, if the six short blasts and one long blast sounded on the ships whistles and alarms*, she’d be just as vacuous and insolent to people who called her about that, too.

Of course, it wouldn’t matter so much, if I hadn’t just had one of the worst night’s sleep of my entire life. Of all the days, I really needed to sleep through til eight, this was the one. Typical. Better try and get my head back down. Got to be “immigrated” at nine. Are you interested in how pretty Port Everglades looks in the darkness of early dawn, as seen from the webcam on the telly (turned on to make sure the world wasn’t ending)? No, didn’t think so. Me neither.

D-Day, so to speak.

Couldn’t get back to sleep, surprisingly. On the plus side, this meant that when dad rang and said “20 minutes”, I was almost already ready. Met parents for immigration. Again. First we waited with our tour group in the Palladium. Then we trooped ashore to be immigrated. It took less than fifteen minutes. Why the people of Los Angeles couldn’t do it like that, I have no idea. Miserable, selfish, vindictive morons. Then we had to kill three quarters of an hour waiting in a seating area, although, on the plus side we waited on some of the most comfortable seats I’ve ever sat on in any waiting area anywhere in the world. They were sort of leather[ette?] benches with metal armrests. Lovely.

We then boarded the coach (which had the most enormous amount of legroom for each seat) and our guide, Larry, and driver, Wendel, started our trip around Fort Lauderdale. By going the wrong way. Marvellous. We spent the best part of the first half hour going the wrong way before we had to turn around and go all the way back again. Ridiculous. Larry explained that Wendel, although a very good driver, had never driven to the boat we were headed to, and, he, Larry, was navigating [badly]. Fine, but could Wendel not have, oh, I don’t know, LOOKED IT UP before taking responsibility for getting thirty people there?! Wacky thought, I know, but I’m conventional like that. I would never dream of driving someone to somewhere I had never been before, without at least looking at a map. Good grief.

Larry was unusual for American, in that he understood the difference between England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and never used the term “Brit”. He even knew about Gibraltar, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man! However, sadly, beyond that, he had only two topics: his hatred of graffiti and his own life story. He told us all about the fines for graffiti in Fort Lauderdale and how proud he was that Florida was so strict. Every time you get caught tagging, the fine goes up and even if you are on benefits, you are expected to both pay the fine and do 100 hours community work painting over other people’s graffiti. Once is interesting, twice is repetitive, five or six times is just plain annoying. Yes, Fort Lauderdale is clean, but it is far from graffiti-free – I saw some myself. All Larry said was, “Yes, but you have to LOOK for it”. Oh, well, that’s alright then.

Other than that, he talked about himself. I can tell you that he used to be in the army and was stationed in Germany. When he left the army, he stayed in Germany and ran a discotheque and a fast food stall to cater to the other American GIs. He is bilingual in German and even drove us past the best German restaurant in Fort Lauderdale. No, really. He holidayed in Florida nine years in a row, which is how he fell in love with the place. He left Germany in 1992 after reunification robbed him of his clientele. Once he and his German girlfriend went to the Shetland Islands for their holiday and he got to shake hands with Prince Charles (who didn’t have an ounce of fat on him, apparently, and Diana was much more beautiful than her pictures). That’s about it. He is now 71 and drives buses when he is not wittering away at the passengers. No age discrimination here. As long as you’re healthy, it’s easy to find work. Apparently, it’s just done on a first come, first served basis. According to Larry, anyway. All of the above added no little irony for the fact that his surname is Grosskopf. Bighead. I kid you not. Read his ID badge.

The only other things he talked about in the several hours he dragged us around Fort Lauderdale were people losing their homes and small businesses due to foreclosures (cheerful stuff) and how there are no safety checks on cars in the US – everyone can maintain their own vehicle and no one checks them (comforting stuff). And everyone needs a car because there is no public transportation in the United States. I nearly piped up that San Francisco has nine different sorts of public transportation, but I couldn’t face dealing with the response, so I let it go. It was easier. Apparently even people on welfare need a car in Florida, just to go and collect their cheques, because there is no public transportation. Sweetie, this is not something to be proud of. [Neither were the occasional spit spots of gratuitous generalisation racist comments that dropped into the rhetoric every now and then, although the ones about Germans hogging sunloungers did raise a smile.] Seriously, after a few hours of Larry, I now understand why the right to bear arms is so important in the United States. Although if I did, Larry would definitely be an ex-Larry by now. Dear heaven, he was boring. In fact, he was so repetitive that when he told us about the canal and road that both run from Key West to Canada, which he did, SEVERAL times, people started reciting bits for him, word for word. After a while, I would happily have done him in, myself. Puzzlingly, he was very insistent that there is absolutely no public transport in Florida whatsoever. If you’re wondering why I’ve repeated this, remember that, although he is a [rubbish] part-time tour guide, his day job is that he is a BUS DRIVER, himself…

Mercifully, we then went on a boat with a fake paddle wheel and a really loud engine, but at least it was well away from the mindless Larry and the incompetent Wendel. We sailed around the man-made canals and man-made port of Fort Lauderdale, while the guide told us who owned which house and how much they were worth. Not exactly inspiring stuff. Barely interesting, frankly. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant enough little jaunt, and the three of us each had a kosher hotdog and some homemade lemonade to pass the time, before we had to go back to the bus and the interminable Larry.

To be fair to both Larry and the boat bloke, briefly, there is nothing to say about Fort Lauderdale. It’s a man-made port in a man-made bay with 350 miles of man-made canals. The rest is beaches and shops. There is absolutely nothing else. Fort Lauderdale may be a great place to spend Spring Break flashing too much skin and drinking too much alcohol, but that’s it. It’s a beach resort. There is nothing else. No history, no culture, no industry, no public art, no notable architecture, no theatre or art galleries. We didn’t even see a cinema and, with all the detours, we saw a fairly large proportion of the place. Furthermore, Larry seemed oddly proud of the fact that there is no “centre”, no Downtown, per se. Just shops and shops and clinics and shops. Larry assures us that if you drive down the road past a McDonalds, for example, in 3 miles there will be another. Likewise with malls. He describes the weather as ‘6 months heaven, 6 months hell’, but what he didn’t say is that the place is utterly soulless. I’m not sure its even possible to like Fort Lauderdale. What is there to like?

Note to anyone from P&O reading this: don’t go to Fort Lauderdale. It may be very easy to park in the largest and best organised cruise port in the world, but it’s a rubbish place for passengers.

Note to passengers arriving in Fort Lauderdale: when you get off, go to Miami. I know it’s an hour each way, but, trust me on this.

Second note to passengers: if you can’t face food first thing in the morning before going ashore, each peanuts, not crisps. They contain protein and will fill you up for longer. You can’t take food ashore with you in the US.

Wendel, under instruction from Larry, took us to a shopping centre we’d been to before called The Galleria (P&O are nothing if not creatures of habit), where we could do some shopping and then catch a free shuttle bus back to the ship. [For those of you with good memories, and we are going back a few years here, it was the one with all the loos at one end] Larry was under the impression that the tour was a full half hour longer than we thought, and NO ONE wanted the extra half hour, so we legged it off the bus with as much alacrity as we could muster.

Once in the mall, we just shopped. Nothing exciting, except a few prices that, even with the sale reductions, caused a little hyperventilation among the parents. The loos were dismaying, particularly by the standards we have come to expect from the United States, and had those automatic flushes that go off while you’re still sitting down. There was an attendant present, but she was doing as near to nothing as makes no difference. She was standing around, but moved so little, it was only the movement of the eyes that reassured me I shouldn’t call for help.

But the cafe on the top floor of Nieman Marcus was wonderful – I think it was called the Mermaid Cafe. Good coffee (when it was hot), superb apple pie and delightful service. We were even offered a free “popover” to try, by our server, William, which turned out to be, oddly enough, a fairly large Yorkshire pudding served with strawberry butter. No, don’t ask me. You now know as much as I do. Dad ate it. I have photographic proof. Virtually all of it, so it can’t have been too bad.

Word to the wise: if you wish to shop at Nieman Marcus (and you shouldn’t because they are REALLY expensive), you will need to be aware that they have an exclusive deal with American Express and do not accept any other credit cards whatsoever. In order to purchase something with a different credit card, you have to go up to the top level and purchase a Nieman Marcus gift card in the total amount of your purchases, including tax. This you then take back downstairs to pay for your purchases. You couldn’t make this stuff up, no one would believe you. Go to Macy’s instead. Not only is it cheaper, it is nowhere near as difficult to pay for things.

We went into Dillards to see if they had Dad’s aftershave. First, we were ignored and then helped by a woman who didn’t know the products. Then we were served by a woman who had absolutely no clue whatsoever about anything at all, not even how to scan a barcode to ascertain the price. Then another man came over to offer to help, but when we asked for his help, he walked away. Eventually, we gave up. They didn’t have it on display, so they probably didn’t have it all. And if they did, tough. They need to hire better staff.

In total, in the mall, I bought two pairs of denim shorts and three tops, so nothing mega. Around 3.45pm we made a mad dash back through the mall to the shuttle bus and to the ship. Dad is annoyed that we are leaving so early – 5.30 BOB for 6 – (last shuttle left at 4.15pm) as we have so little distance to travel before Port Canaveral tomorrow. He’s right. There was absolutely no reason we couldn’t have stayed another hour or two, which would have given us time to explore more widely and maybe even visit Miami itself, which is an hour each way from the port. But, oh no, not with this Captain. Not a chance.

In retrospect, Larry did tell me one fact that I (a) found interesting and (b) didn’t know already, that being that Florida and Great Britain are about the same length. So now you know. That’s it. That’s what I learned today.

In the evening, the shift supervisor came to explain to me about the noise and vibration. He said it was a problem with the fire extinguisher system in the engine room beneath my cabin, and he couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t happen again. What nonsense. Dad pointed out it was probably the air bridge pushing against the side of the ship, which, frankly, makes much more sense, including the timing. Fire extinguishers? Seriously? It’s as if they don’t care how ridiculous they sound, as long as they are saying SOMETHING, anything by way of an excuse. If you have nothing valuable to say, say nothing.

My ankles are swollen for some reason. The end.

* The ship’s emergency signal. It means muster stations, bring medication and a coat, we’re probably leaving the ship.

N.B. This is a “middle of the night can’t sleep waffle”. You have been warned.

The English language is one of the most expressive languages on Earth. The other day, I had the following conversation with someone. ‘How is your shoulder?’ ‘Better, but not better, thanks for asking’. Two meanings within just one word, both easily understood and distinguished. What a marvellously nuanced language.

And yet we say that we “make a friend”. Really? “Make”? From scratch? The act of creation? Producing something where there was little or nothing before? Surely we don’t really “make” a friend? We can acquire a friend, attract one, develop one, find one, borrow one, even, but do we really make it from nothing? Do you have a single friend you have truly bonded with with whom you had absolutely no prior link whatsoever?

If I look at my address book, in no particular order (before people start getting huffy (!)), I can sort my friends into groups as follows. Our connections are based upon:

Lived next door to/ opposite; (Nora, Kris and Rich and Sel, Julie);
Worked at the same radio station as (Fiona, Monique);
Worked at the same office as (Abbi, Kam, Richard, Tony, Jackie, Eve);
Worked at the same library as (Irene);
Was in the same class/school as (Ros, James, April, David);
Follow the same comedian as (Ian and Paula, Gio, Emma, Judy, Clare, Sam);
Travelled on the same ship as (Simon and Guy, Hayley and John, Charles and Louise, Enid and Ann, etc.);
Once sat in the computer room next to (Matt);
Once sat on the train opposite (Jolene);
Frequented the same cafe as (Jerome);
Learned from (Janet and Pete);
Met through mutual friends/ acquaintances (Jon, Simon, Angie, Bethan, Oli, Ed, Anna, Alexander, Denise);
Researched families from the same town as (Mayer);
Relatives of friends who became friends in their own right (Tia, Mo, June, Neil, Mike and Kate, Jen, Roger and Jean, David and Jean, Alice, Holly, Karl, Stephen, Vicki, Elliot, Zen, Connor, Laura, Nick);
Relatives who became friends (Tali, Ellen, Eryl and Rob, Fran, Stewart and Julie, Judi and Jerry);

However tenuous the link – Jolene and I met on the train going home on the day both of us lost our jobs – there is a link. It’s not random. It’s not created from scratch. It’s not “made”. It’s not born out of nothingness. There was something there, however infinitesimally small, to start with.

Granted, friendships need work (some more than others!), but the above fifty-odd entries constitute the entire contents of my current address book. If you’re not listed, I don’t have your address! Send it to me at once! Tut.

I have just finished reading Connected by Nicolas A. Christakis, MD, PhD and James H. Fowler, PhD, about the mathematics and the logic of social networks. Not Facebook or MySpace per se, but the networks we form in our everyday lives. The premise being, perhaps unsurprisingly, that we are all connected.

Whilst I have already personally proven to you that six degrees of separation is a genuine thing – we are all connected to virtually everyone on the face of the Earth in around six jumps – (for those feeling blank, please go back to the Archive and search January 2010) I can find surprisingly few connections between my friends as listed above. My Facebook friends are even more disparate, including staff at hotels I have lived in (how alarming that that is a plural), cruise ship staff and ex-staff and various other, more tenuous connections still, such as other Emma Freemans, other M.E. and diabetes sufferers and one or two even vaguer links I’m not sure I can even recall.

The seemingly unconnected nature of the above list of friends is very good from the six degrees of separation point of view, particularly as they cross several oceans (if only I had an address for Lou in Bali!), but it strikes me that very few of my friends know each other. Is that odd? Is that normal? Christakis and Fowler don’t seem to think so, and it has me slightly worried. If anything happened to me, how would all these people, who don’t know each other from Adam, pass the news round? Particularly since not one of them knows my Facebook password to change my status for me in my absence, and anyway, they don’t all use Facebook!

So what draws us to a person? What makes a chance link into a friendship? Just because I sat next to Matt in the computer cluster one day in the early 1990s, there was no reason for us to start talking to each other. In the five years that I studied full-time at Leeds, I must have sat next to several hundred people in half a dozen different computer rooms, and I don’t still follow their blogs eleven years later. In fact, I never even went to the cinema with any one of them, but Matt.

For what it’s worth, what we talked about on the day we met was how slow the University’s internet connection was (1T!), while we watched my Netscape satellite rotate seemingly endlessly around the planet (for those of you who don’t understand that clause, I’m sorry, you’re just too young) and how to get a Unix address (Matt telling me) in order to get a faster connection (like his) and more storage. I needed more storage to receive emails from Dena (who isn’t listed because I don’t have her new address, but she comes under the relatives list), who needed to send large files across from Ethiopia, where she lived at the time. In the end, I got the account (boy, was it a complicated process!) but she never sent me any files in the end and I never once logged into the account. So my opportunity to learn Linux was lost, but I gained Matt as a friend. I even remember where I was when he told me he was in love with Vicki, who in turn became a good friend (I even sang at their wedding), although his blog is currently our only link. In my defence, do you know how hard it is to get to Driffield?! Look it up. They live in the middle of bleeding nowhere!

But Matt and Vicki have never, to my knowledge, met Dena, or anyone else listed above. Although I think there is a mutual friend connection with someone on Facebook, if I recall. Leeds University wasn’t THAT big.

So that’s just one example. I could list them all, but you’d get bored long before I got tired of talking/ typing. But in my first year, there were nine people who shared my flat with me – only Julie stuck. In my last year, there were another nine – only Nora remains. And my best friend from my school days, Petra, doesn’t appear at all.

I had drinks and chat with Joan and Colin tonight. We met on the dog sledding trip and hit it off immediately. We have virtually nothing in common – they’re grandparents with thin bodies, great tans and a naughty sense of humour and I’m… not. Except for the sense of humour part. And that’s our link. We make each other laugh. We have a great time together, night after night. We never run out of things to say or talk about and we almost never disagree about anything, because we have a similar way of looking at the world.

This also what binds the biggest group listed above: Ian and Paula, Gio, Emma, Judy, Clare and Sam, who along with Dave and Alan, whose addresses I do not have, form the remnants of the Gorum. We all met through a mutual love of the humour of Dave Gorman. That’s it. That’s what connects us. Some live in South Wales or near it, some live in the South East of England, Gio and Sam both live somewhere in the middle, but what connects us is humour. We laugh at the same stuff and see the world in a similar way. And we are all passionate about misuse and abuse of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I’ve even listed their kids, because we all get on so well (and they are four of the most devastatingly intelligent and articulate young adults you will ever meet – quite intimidating at times, frankly).

Is that it? Is that what connects me to all of the people above? Do they make me laugh? Do I make them laugh? Do we laugh at the same stuff in the same way? Probably not all of them and probably not always. But it is certainly a powerful link if you do laugh at the same things and see things similarly. And yet it is by no means essential. There are people in that list who don’t get my sense of humour AT ALL, but they are still good friends.

Interestingly, or maybe not, interesting to me at least, there is no one there who was in my class at school, there is no one there from my five years as a Girl Guide, there is no one there from either of my music colleges. Neither is there anyone left from my second degree; although I thought I had made at least two lasting friendships, neither survived the physical separation of real life. There is not a soul from the longest job I ever held, neither is there anyone from my place of worship. And none of my current neighbours appear either. In fact, I’m not even sure I know their names. And there’s only six flats in my block in the first place, so it’s not like it’s a lot of names to learn or bonds to form. In fact, I’ve only met two of them and that was only because there was a power cut.

What decides whether a friendship survives or not? Is it just about effort? When I lost touch with those two friendships from Birkbeck, was it my fault for not staying in touch more? Or theirs? Or did we simply not have enough in common to keep us going when real life got in the way? My mum is still making arrangements to meet up with people she met fifty years ago. Will any of my friendships last that long? Will Joan and Colin fall similarly by the wayside once I get home? Will Ann and Enid? I certainly hope not, but I’ve been wrong before. It is much harder to keep in touch with people who don’t use email or Facebook, but it shouldn’t be impossible, should it? Have we/I become so lazy with all our modern communications that we/I can’t/won’t/don’t pick up the phone any more or write a letter?

Well, I’ve typed four pages of text, and killed a couple of the wee small hours, but I’m none the wiser as to what makes a friendship, let alone a lasting one. I still have more questions than answers. If you have any opinions or ideas that might help me, please do let me know!

Forgot we lost an hour at lunchtime. Didn’t put my watch on an hour. Missed my massage. Not my finest day ever.

Did finish reading The Finkler Question. Interesting book. Very enjoyable. But an unsatisfying ending. But then, how could it end? It’s written in the here and now and the Israel/Palestinian nonsense rumbles on. There is no answer. At least, not as yet, and, I fear, probably not in my lifetime, frankly. So the question probably has to remain unanswered. Unsatisfying, just the same. Asking Anglo-Jewry some hard questions, without even suggesting possible answers is brave, but ultimately dismaying for the reader hoping for insight and answers. Not sure it warranted the Booker Prize, though, if I’m being brutally honest. It’s good, but I’m not sure it’s THAT good.

Didn’t sleep well. Too hot and too excited. I felt like the kids on the old Disneyland Paris advert. “I’m too exCITed”. Today at 10 we went ashore in Cozumel.

Although it was chucking it down with rain, it was so warm it didn’t matter. I walked down the long concrete pier, which, last time we were here, was so windy, we thought we’d be blown into the sea. They now have rickshaws to run you to the shore, which is a lovely touch and is free – well, “tips only” anyway – which makes life much more pleasant.

Boy, has Cozumel changed in the six years since we were last year. They must have been building almost continuously. There is a brand new, two-storey open air shopping centre (opened three and a half years ago) that you are, surprise, surprise, funnelled through to get to the taxis and excursion buses (which are also taxis).

We caught a cab south through a part of town that didn’t even exist last time we were here, past another cruise terminal with two Carnival cruise ships tied up, that also wasn’t here last time, and on to Chankanaab National Park.

This is where Dolphin Discovery is. We had pre-booked on the internet and arranged a Dolphin Encounter at 1pm. We were given yellow wristbands to show we had already paid our entrance fee to the Park (included in the fee for the Dolphin Encounter) and then pootled around the facilities and the shop before getting changed at half eleven.

We then gathered for a briefing talk, and got a green wristband to identify which group we were in. We were then shown the hand signals to use and warned about fingernails and wedding rings, as well as where NOT to touch a dolphin(!). Then we walked down to the water and down the metal stairs into the water. We stood on a metal grille platform about three feet wide. It ran the length of the pen, which was about fifteen feet square. Luckily the wooden pier above our heads had wire fencing attached to it. If we hadn’t had that to hold on to, we’d have been washed away (or at least across the pen!), because it was a little windy and the water was surprisingly rough. We were in the Atlantic, after all, strictly speaking. The rain stopped, but the sun was weakened by a generally overcast sky. It poked through now and then (enough to burn my shoulders, again) and, thankfully enough to make the water quite warm (far more important!).

Then we took it turns to pet, stroke, kiss and otherwise play with Amaya, while her baby played/trained on the other side of the pool (they stay together for the first eighteen months)(they live to an average age of 50, more than twice their life expectancy in the wild)(Amaya is 22) and a photographer took photos of each of us. Amaya’s skin was very smooth and she clearly loved being stroked. When one of the women said “I can’t” [let go of the wire fence], Amaya shook her head. We don’t say can’t. She did jumps and sang to us and thoroughly enjoyed being told to splash us and make us scream. Her trainer, Carlos, and she had a really good relationship and the whole thing was thoroughly amazing. We were in the water much longer than we expected, probably as long as an hour and a half. My fingers were certainly very pruney by the end.

20:45 Code Alpha in the Lower Meridien Restaurant. Oh dear. That’s not good. And then, less than 6 minutes later, the same Code Alpha again. Presumably the doctors didn’t respond to the first one. That’s a bit worrying… Granted it’s completely the other end of the ship to the medical centre, but still. Even I could get there quicker than that.

After the encounter, we got changed and then had a late lunch (3pm!) in the restaurant. Mum and dad had guacamole and tortilla chips and I had a chicken burger. All delicious. Absolutely lovely. Not cheap, mind you. The whole meal was 35 dollars for those meals plus two diet cokes and a rather weak lemonade. That’s about 24 pounds, or eight quid a head before tip. Not extortionate, but not cheap either. This is the difference between mainland Mexico and Cozumel. Cozumel is an island. EVERYTHING is imported. And, thus, everything costs more than it would on the mainland. Cozumel ain’t cheap. But, as the most popular cruise port in the world, they can afford to push their luck a little.

Then we collected our photo disc and caught a taxi back to the mall opposite the port. We pootled briefly, before mum and dad called it quits and headed back to the ship. I shopped a little longer and got chased down the street twice. Once by a man who didn’t grasp that I had absolutely no intention of paying anything like 68 dollars for a cotton sundress, and once by a jeweller who had found a seahorse charm for me. Unfortunately, it was the ugliest seahorse you’ve ever seen, so I didn’t buy it after all. Several of the shops were handing out free silver charms today – you could have a heart or an elephant, for some reason. I ended up with both, along with some unset jewels, which I will have to mount into something at some point in the future.

By the time I had showered the sand out of my toes, it was time for dinner, and, so, here we are. My sunburn itches and the muscles in my legs are aching something rotten, probably from the effort of staying still in the waves for so long. I’m going to bed.

NB. Photos of Amaya will have to wait til i get home, I’m afraid. Sorry.

I’m pretty sure I’m right, now. It’s back. At dinner, I greeted Dad with the words “The doors are open”. He’s noticed too. The doors in question are the toilet doors. When they are propped open, it’s to reduce the hand to hand contact of using the handles, and that’s not necessary unless You Know Who is in town. In addition to which, one of our tablemates witnessed one of the croupiers in the casino fainting last night. Spark out on the floor. That, plus the missing singer and the two sick people at dinner the other night? Ladies and gentleman, please put your hands together and welcome back on board, the Norovirus. In case I am wrong – which isn’t impossible, let’s face it – I’m staying away from German cucumbers, just to be on the safe side, you understand… I mean, beansprouts… I mean….

Seriously? How hard can it really be to find the source of an e-coli outbreak? What happened to so-called German efficiency? Just concentrate on what connects the first few cases, surely? I’ve never seen such a lousy mess of an investigation. Well, that is, unless you count psychic tip-offs in Texas… Really? You thought it wise to tell the world’s media about a mass grave of dismembered children before you’d even got a search warrant? Smart, really smart. I’m telling you, the whole world’s gone mad.

Colour changing lights. If you don’t like them, this is not the ship for you. The designers of this ship were REALLY into colour changing lights. They are everywhere. The walls of the nightclub, the ceiling of the bar between the art gallery and The Globe, the ceiling of the atrium at reception, even the pillars in the Meridien restaurant. They’re inescapable! Even the bottoms of the glass lifts flash through three colours as they go past! Absolute madness. The people who designed this ship were mental. Although, to be fair, if you want a life, the glass ones are best. They arrive WAY faster than the other ones. Plus you get the view out over the ocean as you go.

These are all just rumours. I cannot vouch for the veracity of any of them. For all I know, they may ALL be nonsense.

Rumour that, originally, the Immigration People were calling names at random. This prompted some sarcasm along the lines of “Can you go any slower?” to which the response was, “We’ll show you how slow we can go”.

Another rumour about an assault and arrest and that someone is now off the ship.

Incorrectly completed Customs declarations or, more probable, not completed at all, as we were told the night before we didn’t need to do them. Many of us caught on and did them in the queue, but many also arrived at the front empty-handed and had to stand and fill them in then and there.

One lady wrote to Captain and was told that the need to fill in a Customs declaration was a change of mind “at the last minute” by US Immigration.

One couple stayed on the ship and waited for the final call, which came at 1pm. They then still had to wait 2 hours.

Someone made an adverse comment about 9/11 and incompetence, which upset the Americans.

Rumour that there was a party on the Queen Mary in Long Beach and the Captain held the ship back so that he could attend. He is joining the current Queen Mary this September.

Rumour that two people from the ship are still being held in LA. And that this made the news in England. Allegedly. The lady apparently assaulted an Immigration Official and her partner stayed with her.

Someone was seen having bananas removed from them. You’re not allowed to take food into the USA and this made them check everyone more carefully.

Cheering and clapping for each person that made it through. Americans don’t like sarcasm.

At least one chorus of “Why are we waiting”.

Rumour that it made it to British TV that there was a riot on a P&O ship in LA. There was certainly something pretty close.

Verifiable and verified facts

There are two currently mentions of the LA immigration incident on the web. They are at maritime matters.com, which starts as a review of the ship, as if it is new, with photos of each public room, etc. (it’s not new, it’s six years old), and then goes on to talk about what happened at immigration in LA; and the other is on the P&O website itself, where individual passengers can have blogs. Who “Jay” is, I don’t know, but it’s an interesting read.

We may never know the truth of what happened or why, but both passengers and officers are openly worried about what might happen when we get to Port Everglades and have to be immigrated AGAIN.

Ah, goody. Another container port to add to my book. Puerto Limon is not very pretty, but then again, I didn’t really expect it to be. Don’t get me wrong. The sea is pretty and we are obviously in quite a sheltered bay, because there are no waves to speak off, even on the opposite shore, and the beaches beyond the port are deserted and look rather inviting. But Puerto Limon itself is a port, a working port, with boxes of things and containers and cranes and forklifts and all the usual accoutrements that combine to concrete over the pretty and replace it with functional but ugly. And, as always in these places, there is one pickup truck that just seems to drive up and down, apparently at random, and without an evident aim or destination. There was one at the Canal yesterday, doing just the same thing.

Puerto Limon is only a little port, I can see the other side. It’s not like Singapore or Los Angeles. It’s teeny tiny by comparison, but it’s a busy little place. Beyond it, the rainforest begins almost immediately, with only a sliver of grey-gold beach and a road before the foliage starts to swallow the houses. Oh, and the runway. Puerto Limon International Airport, as it is known. Because there is one flight to Panama, they’re allowed to call it international. Which is basically a runway of about 2 miles long that runs parallel to the beach, although the road veers reassuringly out of the way. Good thing too, because if anything really large, like a 747 ever came here, it would decapitate any passing cars.

27% of Costa Rica is protected forest and you’ll remember all those stats about biodiversity from the Puntarenas entry. 2,500 types of orchid, for a start; some of which, our guide, Alvero, assures us are edible. I think I may just take his word for that, if it’s all the same to you. Although vanilla is apparently an orchid, and I have nothing against eating vanilla-flavoured stuff!

Our driver, Franklin, kept stopping the bus to go and hack bits off trees to show us. He even brought a full bunch of bananas, and we all got one each. By the end, the coach was full of foliage!

We arrived, eventually, at the Dole Bananito Factory and Village. Bananito means little banana. We calculated that they have a target to process about 2 million bananas a day – 500,000 per container, 4 containers per day. And yes, when I say container, I mean a shipping container. Having seen the process, all gloves and masks and Tesco minimum requirements (no, really)(apparently they are the toughest standards in the world) for crèches and pay, we were then taken to the purpose-built village that they live in. Bananas are an ideal crop for the money-minded. One plant can give you bananas for over thirty years, without the need to reap or replant or anything. Just a bit of fertiliser and people to pick and pack. 42lb of bananas go in one box and then the boxes go onto pallets and the pallets go into the container. They weren’t picking or packing today, because there was no ship in port waiting to be filled.

We bought t-shirts in the village, and sampled the free local liqueurs and coffee and then headed off to the Colon Caribe Resort Hotel. We were brought here for shops and loos and there is also apparently a lot of wildlife. We saw no wildlife at all, but we did see the beautiful pool we didn’t have time to take a dip in. P&O are annoying.

Then it was back to the ship for a late lunch and to watch the boats and jetskis and swimmers in the bay, along with mysterious plumes of black and white smoke rising from different parts of the forest. Then a quick swim and a massage and then it was time for dinner. It’s all go, go, go around here.

Don’t expect much from me tomorrow – we’re losing that hour we gained yesterday, which makes the day astonishingly short. Added to which, it’s a formal night. Another one.

Watching the frigate birds wheel overhead, under a sky that at best would be described as menacing, I feel strangely calm. I am under the roof, which is only half open, so even if those clouds decided to make good on their threats and discharge their contents on the little white boat below, I’d say dry. The humidity is, as you would expect in the middle of a rainforest where it isn’t currently raining, rather high and I have been in steam rooms with less moisture in the air. My clothes were stuck to me anyway, so I figured I might as well go for a swim. My shoulder now hurts, which will wear off in an hour or so, I imagine, but I noticed that, when doing the breaststroke, my mobility in my left arm is still somewhat limited. Still, I have another massage tomorrow evening, after Limon, so maybe that’ll help. Aleksandra is worried about my posture, so I have to think about that now too.

Amazing how many flying ants managed to find my lunch… Well, at least I ate lunch today. That, itself, is an improvement on the last week or so, when I have had no appetite whatsoever.

The war against the noise continues. The only places on this ship where you are not constantly assailed by tinny muzak are the library, the card room and the Neptune pool. Yet today, the shop set up a stall by the pool and promptly started playing tinny muzak – from a phone, I think. When I asked, very nicely, if they would turn it off or at least down, the answer was “No”, and I was told that, if I didn’t like it, I should move sunloungers. I’m pretty sure this is not the way you are supposed to speak to the passengers… Luckily, less than half an hour later, the shift changed and Little Miss Stroppy went off for lunch. I asked the new bloke to turn it off, and, although rather surprised by the request, he did. Several other ladies nearby thanked me.

I don’t understand the obsessive fear of silence that seems to prevail on this ship. You get muzak in Reception, something different in the Intermezzo bar and either the pianist or the singer in the Piano Bar. This wouldn’t be such an issue if they weren’t all centred on the same atrium and staircase, so that, if you position yourself correctly, you can hear all three at once. Seriously?!

You go to a completely empty bar and there is muzak. I once went to check my emails at 4am (couldn’t sleep) and there was muzak playing. It’s like they’re afraid to turn it off. What are they afraid of? Are they afraid that, if there is no muzak, some sea monster will attack the ship? Are they hoping that the noise will drown out the complaints and whinges of the passengers? Is there some competition or bet going on to see how much muzak they can get through in one cruise? Are they hoping the sonic waves will keep whales out of our way? It’s a nightmare. The only silence is in the cabin and the corridor leading to it, and even that isn’t sacrosanct. The Palladium is at the end of my corridor, so during rehearsals or performances, there’s music wafting down there too. But at least the quality is (marginally) higher. Mercy, please. Will someone please turn off the bloody music?!

In certain bars, you can persuade the waiters to turn it down, but they always say they aren’t “allowed” to turn it completely off. Why not? We don’t want it. If we want music, we’ll ask for it, or go to where it is being performed. I know I seem whingey, but I do have hyperacusis, you know. Sensitivity to sound, for those who can’t be bothered to google it. It means that loud noises cause me actual physical pain, such as a knife dropped onto a plate, and also that my hearing is quite sensitive. But I’m not the only one. Everyone I ask is sick to death of all the noise. Cruises are supposed to be quiet holidays – that’s one of the attractions. No cars, no lorries, no horns, no roadworks and pneumatic drills, none of the noises of everyday life. When we arrive in port, we are supposed to be shocked at the noise levels, not relieved there’s no pigging music playing.

It’s not as though music makes you buy more or drink more or eat more. Ask Wetherspoons. They built an entire pub empire on the fact that they PLAY NO MUSIC AT ALL. They even started a separate chain (the Lloyds No.1s) for people who DO want music. And the segregation works perfectly. I’ve only ever once set foot in a No. 1 and that was to use the loo. I can’t take the noise. Give me a nice, quiet Wetherspoons, where I can converse with the person opposite me without having to raise my voice, any day. Funnily enough, some people seem to have forgotten that this is the USP of Wetherspoons. We just take it for granted now. If you asked people what the best thing about Wetherspoons is, they’d probably say the food, although if you then reminded them of the silence, they would probably then choose that instead. I’m sure if you asked Tesco, they’d tell you they rely much more on smells to sell than music.

So why is Arcadia so obsessed with playing music at every moment and in every corner? Sinatra in the Spinnaker bar, jazz by the Aquarius pool, muzak, muzak everywhere, and all of it uniformly terrible. There is some respite in the spa, where you get the plinky Oriental chillout music that’s supposed to make you feel sleepy – I can take that, and I can see the point of it – but not EVERYWHERE. Neptune Pool is a haven from the noise. It’s just you and the sky and the pool and the warmth and, if necessary, the roof. As it should be.

I can hear our engines starting up. We must be about to leave the last lock. Early again. Over an hour earlier than he said. Seriously, the Captain hasn’t given us a single timing on this ship that hasn’t turned out to be woefully inaccurate. Maybe he should just stop altogether. His hit rate can only go up.

There isn’t really anything to tell you about the Panama Canal that I didn’t tell you last time we went through it. Would you like some more stats? Have some more stats.

The first survey of the route was done in 1534 by Charles V of Spain, but nothing happened until the French started digging it in 1880. After 22,000 people had died in nine years, and the company had gone bust, they gave up.

In 1903, the newly-independent Panama did a deal with the United States and the Americans duly started the followed year and finished building it in 1914, ahead of time and under budget, having almost completely eradicated malaria and dengue fever from Panama in the process.

Control passed back to Panama in 1999.

It is 80km/ 50 miles long and knocks 7,873 miles off the trip from New York to San Francisco.

The one millionth ship passed through on September 4 2010. It was a container carrier called the Fortune Plum. Isn’t that the sweetest name?!

The whole canal is currently being widened and expanded and new locks are being built to double its capacity by its centenary in 2014.

There you go. Now you know.

Wandered through the art gallery today. There’s one sculpture and one painting I rather like, but neither grabs me enough, I don’t think. I’m also conscious of all the stuff at home I have yet to hang. I have no idea how much space I’ll have left, if any! Maybe not, then. I’m almost certain I have nowhere to put a sculpture, that’s for sure!

Went to watch the dancing this evening. I only stayed til 11. Most of the dances leave me absolutely cold, especially the latin stuff. The music is so repetitive. The square tango is, to my mind, the most pointless thing I have ever seen and bears no relation whatsoever to the ‘real’ tango. It’s just marching in squares. Ludicrous.

I like the Virginia Reel, the Gay Gordon, the Cheeseburger and the Mayfair Quickstep. All the rest are rubbish to watch. Unfortunately, I couldn’t possibly dance them; not with my sense of balance and tendency towards dizzy spells. I’d spend most of my time on the floor! In fact, just watching made me quite dizzy and I had to call it a day at 11pm. Probably for the best, as I have to be up at 8am. Yes, me, 8am. Scary thought isn’t it? Luckily the clocks go back tonight, so that’ll help.

For those of you following me on a map, we have come south to north through the Panama Canal and have turned LEFT, AWAY from Europe. We are heading back to Costa Rica. Don’t ask me why, I have no idea, but I’m glad of the extra hour, that’s for sure.

Today I came back from dinner at about twenty past eight to find my cabin steward in the corridor, who informed me that the toilets on my corridor were out of order and I shouldn’t flush my toilet til it was fixed. Bowl full of water. Clean water but very full. Fine. I went out to check my emails – I was worried that the Massachusetts tornado may have affected April. At about 10.15pm, I went back to my cabin. Bowl still full of water.

So I went to Reception to ask why, after over two hours, it hadn’t been dealt with and they told me they had no record of a problem. Seriously, it’s not difficult to start ranting on this ship. I know you think I overreact sometimes, but really. Two hours and they had no idea what I was talking about. The night supervisor came to my cabin and we established that it had been reported to a team that were about to go off duty and that the message had not been given to the night people. I kid you not. Why worry? It’s not like toilets are important or anything.

After banging the appropriate heads together, I went to The Globe to watch the ballroom dancing and have a moan at Merle, who is always receptive to a good whinge, and is always at the ballroom dancing, twirling her stuff, and there are also loos near The Globe. After the dancing finished, we went for a hot chocolate/decaff tea up in the Belvedere and then found ourselves at the tail end of a deck party at the back of deck 9. We had a drink and a bit of a boogie and then turned in at about 1.30am. At which point I returned to my cabin. Was my loo fixed? Go on, guess. I bet you’ll never guess.

Reception promptly felt my wrath – good thing it’s manned 24 hours a day on this ship otherwise things could have got REALLY ugly (I told Merle if I couldn’t pee in my own bathroom, I’d go to Reception and do it there!) – the night supervisor came, yet again, and I bent his ear, yet again, and within 15 minutes an engineer had turned up, fixed it and left. I am typing this at 1.47am, while I’m still angry, so that I can get it out of my system before I go to bed. Otherwise, I’ll be lying awake drafting it in my head all night and that is not conducive to a good night’s sleep, no matter how strong that last cocktail I drank may have been.

As the current situation is that, to my knowledge, at least two people threw up during dinner and the singer of one of the bands is confined to her cabin with a fever, I’d say the norovirus may well have reboarded at LA. Marvellous. If so, the one thing we need more than anything else is FUNCTIONING BLOODY TOILETS!