Tuesday 24/3/3015 Day 77 Sea Day southwards towards Singapore

The BBC world tv news headline is about the death of Lee Quan Yew the “father of Singapore” and the compulsory 7 day mourning period in Singapore.  We arrive in Singapore in the morning.  I have twice before been visiting countries at the time an important figurehead has died. I travelled to Washington DC in 2004 on the day of Ronald Reagan’s funeral, coming in to the airport at the same time as people who needed body guards, and queuing for hours in a very tense high security environment in immigration, but nothing else happened, and life went on with a large dose of satire and some ridicule.  He wasn’t such a figurehead though, and never really threw off his cowboy acting image when making his implausible transition into politics.   I was also in Thailand in 2008 when the Thai queen died.  I remember being advised that the most respectful thing for anyone to do was to wear black or white. All the streets were lined with people sitting at the roadside mourning and bowing down to ground. Everyday life was seriously affected. Neither a former actor nor a member of the Royal Family, but the founder of Singapore, I wonder how tomorrow will be, and if we will be advised of cultural expectations in Singapore, or if life just carries on as normal.

Our sea day has been otherwise a very calm one, with morning coffee and barbeque lunch in the sun, where we watched an expert ice carving of an eagle taking shape in 15 minutes in front of our eyes, then walked 9 times round the Promenade deck, had a chat with admin about our 7 days off the ship in Thailand, collected passports for Singapore and spent a lovely 2 hours in the retreat that is our art (“Zebra in water with reflection”) Can't find mine t the moment, here's the original and Khachik's for now.

Then we listened to Captain Hashmi’s farewell as he’s off in Singapore and a new Captain will be coming on until Southampton, Captain Trevor Lane.

Tonight we were beautifully entertained by the truly gifted and talented Kateryna a Ukrainian violinist, and Jacinta an Irish singer, before sneaking into the launderette to get a week’s worth of summer clothes ready for Thailand,  then an early night ready for our brand new day in Singapore tomorrow.

So that’s us for the day. Bye for now x