After a decent sleep, the Captain was on the Tannoy waking up many passengers (and a few crew apparently!) with an update.
In a nutshell, we’d be hanging around awaiting our northbound convoy, whilst a convoy of 36 ships headed south. We’d be number 6 in the queue north, behind some US navy ships and we’d get a schedule of viewing points later in the morning.
Having been woken early, we lazed around for a while but then had the traditional visit to the buffet before returning to the cabin, to find the printed schedule was already there.
This we knew was subject to change and our transit entrance was down as 14:30pm – so we’d be stationary for half the day, yet this wasn’t really a problem as the northbound convoy was passing and we had land on both sides – and loads of other ships anchored, so it wasn’t as boring as it might seem – until it came to trying to use the internet or watch the TV broadcast channels, as opposed to the ex-hard drive, ship’s channels.
Seems that everyone with an internet device was already logged on, so I couldn’t. There was a Vodafone signal (from Egypt) so Paula had a message or two in and out. It also meant that as F1 start time rapidly approached, there was no chance of watching it.
Morning trivia was 16/20 - but the resident smart Alec’s got 20.
Coffee in the Atrium was the weakest flat white I have ever had, so I had to ask for another shot – and it still wasn’t very tasty. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t clipped my coffee card – which sometimes they forget to do, but a case of swings and roundabouts so I can’t complain.
I went back to the cabin (to get up to date with the blog of course) whilst Paula stayed chatting to the other members of our afternoon trivia team.
Then came Captain Kent’s next announcement. Instead of a 14:30 transit start, it would now be 16:00. Now this obviously means that our next scheduled port arrival in Athens, 6am Tuesday, may be affected, but until we actually exit the Canal, we won’t know by how much.
Up to the buffet (yes, again) for a latish lunch, missing the Arabian buffet, which might well have been interesting, taking a hunk of roasted chicken from the carvery station and a slab of focaccia bread, making a pleasant sandwich, plus a bowl of mushroom soup. More chatting and a return to the cabin. Still no internet access possible and no TV programmes so I missed the Austrian GP.
Our afternoon trivia team is going well – but not quite well enough as we are usually just a point or two behind the winners. Just as trivia finished, most people went out on deck to watch a flotilla (is that the right word?) of 4 US warships who would be into the canal ahead of us, coming up astern. (That is apparently a nautical term, meaning behind...) They have priority and finally, about 11 hours later than the original schedule, we finally entered the Canal about 6pm, but somehow or other, a container ship had slotted in ahead of us.
By the time we went for dinner at 7:45, the sun was just setting and many first time passengers elected to stay out on deck. It was an Oriental menu, so John, Marilyn, Paula and myself opted to do the Oriental thing and ordered ALL the mains between us and just dipped in! Very successful. June and Elaine had their own and Sandie and Alan stayed out. So between us we polished off most of the 4 spare ribs, lemon chicken, spicy noodles with beef (and they were spicy!), a Nasi Goreng, butterfish and spicy prawns.
Paula and I shared her favourite dessert Рraspberry cr̬me brulee.
The early show (Kennedy) had been cancelled due to some rescheduling but the theatre late show was another new (to us) act, 30 year old Craig Richard, from Colorado.
An interesting character who was featured in one of those Discovery Channel features “I should Have Died”. He was a keen rock climber who had a nasty climbing accident falling probably 1,000ft, and smashed his right leg. He crawled about 18 hours, lucky to survive. In a few days’ time, he is doing a lecture about it, but for tonight, he played alto sax, soprano sax and the piano and sang a bit. Another good show, but talking to a couple who had seen him before, they said the show was identical and thought that he loved himself too much! Well, we enjoyed it anyway.
By the end of the show, we were at one of the widest points of the canal and we retired for the night – by which time the TV channels were back on again so I caught the result of the GP but obviously missed the actual race broadcast.
A day at sea tomorrow when no doubt the Captain will be giving it some jandal. (OK, a new NZ/Australian saying, thanks to Kiwi Volvo V8 driver, Scott McLaughlin!) He’ll be trying to make up for lost time, but as everyone knows, being late is easy. Being early is often easy (for some), but having lost time, making it up is extremely difficult. The ship normally travels at about 18/19 knots. If all the air conditioning were switched off and the water temperature was low enough to help cool the engines, then flat out, we could probably do 25 knots given favourable sea conditions and wind speed.
The seas now are smooth and more like what we are used to, so it is difficult to tell that we are in fact moving at all.
(Once again, so many people logged on that internet connection is impossible during the day, so this will be uploaded well after it was written.)
No comments:
Post a Comment