Tuesday 28th February – At Sea

It was the turn of the comedian in the show lounge last night. He was OK, not wonderful, but by no means the worst we've sat through on previous cruises (think Dave Evans and Peter Goodwright, to name but two).

The ship was rocking and rolling again a bit overnight, Gale force 9 dropping to 7, but Boudicca copes extremely well with that sort of weather. The captain makes a daily announcement about weather conditions, our progress, and the health status onboard. His catchphrase appears to be 'wash, wash, wash', or rather 'vosh, vosh, vosh', as he has a strong Norwegian accent. He assures us that we have no health problems (Norovirus – though the 'N' word is never uttered) at the moment, but I was rather worried to see a man dressed in face mask, plastic apron, shoe covers and gloves entering one of the cabins on Deck 7 yesterday, so am continuing to squirt anti-viral gel onto our hands at every opportunity. We're always pleased to see the Doctor in the audience of the shows in the evening, as it means she's not busy making house calls!

We skipped breakfast again this morning, opting for tea and biscuits in the cabin instead. That meant we were hungry enough to go to our allocated lunch sitting at noon, and listen to some of our table companions gush about how many nights they've notched up on Fred Olsen cruises. Four of them have cruised with no other company, and seem to have no other topic of conversation. We stunned them today by having declined to attend the pre-lunch cocktail party for Gold and Silver Oceans Club members! They always ask to sit on table 39 (or its equivalent on the other ships), knowing that it'll be hosted by an officer. Fortunately, the other two ladies on our table are lovely, and I'm fairly sure one of them would beat everyone on the table hands down if we were to play 'cruise ship poker' as she's on her THIRD cruise this year! (New readers should read our previous cruise blogs for poker rules).

Advice from the speaker about dressing for the next two ports of call... If you ask the question “does my bum look big in this?”and the answer is “No”, then you're not wearing enough! So the salopettes and thermal long johns may get their first outing tomorrow.

All for now

Love

Janet

xx