Tuesday 17/3/2015 Day 70 South China Sea to Hainan Island.

Sector 4 begins! Taking us to Hainan Island, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia (India for the ship, but not us) and then the UAE (where we rejoin the ship after our special week in Bangkok). Then it’s the fifth and final sector, through the Suez Canal and across the Med, up to Lisbon, Southampton and then home.  All scheduled to happen in the next 5 weeks.   

We left the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong last night. We’re presently travelling south so we won’t be changing clocks for a couple of days, still 8 hours ahead of home. Today is St Patrick’s Day on Arcadia too, and looking at my Horizon there’s an afternoon celebration with Irish singer Shane Morgan in the Palladium, so we’ve put an asterisk next to that one, along with yoga and art (we’re painting a beautiful butterfly today J).

It’s bright and sunny and the outside temperature has sneaked back up to a very comfortable 26C, meaning morning coffee on the outside deck again. Lovely breezes (Force 6) with a calmish sea, and from time to time we pass traditional Chinese fishing boats, but not too much traffic.

We are just waiting for a message to collect our passports so we can go off the ship in to Sanya tomorrow, the calls are one deck at a time, we are deck D and they are up to C at the moment.  We had to get a double entry visa because Hong Kong, our middle port, is still treated as a foreign country in terms of our travel.  Before we set off from Manchester we had to get a visa for Shanghai, no visa required for British Citizens who travel to Hong Kong, and then another visa for Hainan Island.  Shanghai authorities required us to carry the bar coded photocopy of our passports, but Hainan Island immigration needs both the photocopy and the real thing. There are a lot of passengers getting hot under the collar about this.  When it comes to Visas and immigration regulations, I have developed a good helping of resignation now.  Some things are just not for reasoning or arguing with, just compliance. This is one of them. It’s considerably less hassle and healthier I think that way, particularly when it’s a) a power and b) I don’t speak the language

Later tonight after dinner, there’s a group of harmony singers performing in the Palladium called the 4 Tunes, with a good reputation preceding them so I think we’ll give that performance a whirl tonight. Following the performers over the last couple of months it seems that in their cruise ship life they fly to and from different ports and move to and from different ships.  They come on for a week or less, and do 2-3 performances and then leave at the next convenient port.  One violin duo Elektra lost their luggage and violins in Fiji and had to borrow everything on board. Otherwise it all seems to work like clockwork. The comedy has been mediocre, and quite sexist at times, so I am not sorry they got off.  But people like Bruce Morrison (extraordinarily gifted singer and actor) I could quite honestly watch and listen to every single day.  This constant changeover applies to the visiting lecturers like the scientists and explorers, and people like Nick Owen and Lord Michael Howard, too.  They aren’t resident and the programme changes a lot.  There’s a resident dance and singing company called the Headliners, who do all the variety performances in between. They are very good, and work flat out for two performances a day and a full rehearsal.  Then there are the employees of P and O whose job it is to coordinate, publicise and deliver everything else.  These are known as the Entertainment Team, and have an interesting hierarchy of entertainment manager, assistant entertainment manager and entertainment hosts.  Thankfully our art and dance teachers are also on for the whole cruise.

And now for something completely different.   The captain’s nautical tale today was about the origin of the expression “mind your p’s and q’s”.  In the 17^th and 18^th centuries sailors were allowed to drink ale on board.  Ale was served in Pints and Quarts and the liberal amount of drinking permitted meant that some sailors became rowdy and their senior officers had to tell them to control their intake  i.e. mind their pints and quarts and later this was abbreviated to p’s and q’s.  Who knew?

Well that’s me for today. Hopefully hi-speed wifi again tomorrow and lots of photo sharing and skyping going on. Bye for now. x

Sunday 8/3/2015 Day 61 Sea Day in the South China Sea

Oh my word, once again there’s so much activity on the ship today we’re spoilt for choice. Tap dancing, jazz dancing, ballroom dancing, lectures about whales and dolphins, talks about interesting entertainers in the last century like Cole Porter, Elvis and others,  yoga, Pilates, an interdenominational church service, a deck-side photo opportunity for “round-the-worlders”, a barbeque followed by Neptune on board again with an it’s a knockout style contest for new crossers of the Equator.  Sun, sun, sun and a very flat South China Sea at 10 degrees latitude. No evidence of sea life off the ship though, although we might be feeling a bit whale like because of all the five coursers and chocoholic’s paradise.

So we had a look at jazz dancing after our walk today, but it was a bit too high impact and knee twisty unfortunately, but it was fun doing the warm up. We spent a happy time with Neptune and all the frollicks, and later we painted some beautiful crimson orchids.

 

Day 61 so that means that we have now been away from home for 2 months, waking up to sunrises and different sea states, and having everything prepared for us, cleaned for us, generally everything done for us. I keep imagining how it would be to have our close family here, that way we wouldn’t be missing anyone, and we’d be together in the sun. (Of course it would have to be a family friendly ship, not this one which is all about us oldies, but I am sure there’s one out there for us!)

Tomorrow at 8 we arrive in the port of Manila in the Phillipines, take a shuttle bus to the town centre, have a wander, take in the sights and sounds, find good wifi, and then come back and write up the day’s far eastern adventures. So bye for now.  Back soon x