Monday 20/4/2015 Day 104 Lisbon – the final frontier

Right on cue we woke this morning, another hour back on the clock bringing us back in synch with UK time and only 3 days to the end of our world circumnavigation. 

It was just before 7 and we could see land in the distance from our window.  As we got closer Sam, the port presenter did another of her commentaries into cabins and public places from the Crow’s Nest on the top of the ship explaining what the monuments signified and a little bit of history behind the “25^th April Bridge” which not at all accidentally looks like another cruise icon, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

We went onto deck 9 outside, right at the front of the ship and took a lot of photos from our spectacular vantage point. It was fresh and breezy again, but still a lot warmer than when we set off 3 months ago. these are on Facebook already - Christ the King particularly.

Then breakfast, which we shared with a lovely man called Tony from Bournemouth who had sadly recently lost his wife. He shared his life story, all about his family and then moved into his life-long love of football, so it was over to Khachik who seemed to be able to remember who scored and when in the last Bournemouth game!  Amazing.   Then a quick pack ready to take the shuttle bus to the town centre.  Once in town, we walked just a few hundred yards, found a coffee shop with wi-fi and then ordered coffee, sitting in the open air enjoying the street café vibe, the buskers, the colourful tiled walls, architecture, balconies, friendly welcome and some down time. It wasn’t too long before Khachik’s coffee became a beer, and the morning became afternoon.  So we returned to the ship for lunch, which we spent chatting with Easa, then into the gym for our daily dose of cardio, stretch, hot tub, sail-away and dinner.

  

And now we are off again, heading northwards towards the Bay of Biscay, 3 sleeps left, 2 days sailing before Southampton.  The sea has already become a lot more bumpy – for weeks we have not felt it much, but now we are back in the Atlantic it’s only to be expected.  Stugeron is here if we need it. So far, the wind is Force 6, outside temperature 15C, Moderate Sea State and Average to Moderate Swell. 

We have just been to a Four Seasons/Jersey Boys Tribute Act in the Palladium, really good.  Although entertainment can be a little bit unpredictable as I mentioned the other day, tonight was really enjoyable.  Tomorrow a Queen Tribute Act, and then on our last night the Four Season Tribute act is doing another show, and Zack is back, singing 60’s and 70’s too.  

Tomorrow we are painting a rhino with Easa, and watching the Arcadia vocalists (passenger choir) perform in the Palladium in the afternoon, and fitting in some form physical activity and very sensible eating!  I suspect sitting in the sun will be out of the question, but let’s see.  Back tomorrow xx

Sunday 19/4/2015 Day 103 Sea Day, Morocco left, Gibraltar right and then right turn towards Lisbon

Fresh breezes, force 5-6, so the decks were closed now and again today, and the roof was closed over the larger pool on deck 9.  It was still lovely and sunny, though, and we were able to enjoy the hot tub for almost an hour again after our gym session. We are happy that we may have gained cardio fitness whilst on the ship, but “may” also have gained a few pounds of fat at the same time. Not too much, but enough to alert us to how we will not be continuing to eat when we get home.

In art we completed our fabulous seascapes – and are both very happy with these. We’ve learned how to make frothy waves, fluffy clouds, wet and dry sand and all with a backdrop of Table Mountain.

It’s also been a time for organising the cruise folder we brought with 5 dividers, one for each sector.  In this I’ve put the Captain’s cruise logs, the Horizon overviews of the cruise sectors and little bits of memorabilia, including pics from brochures that remind us of thing we didn’t manage to photograph ourselves.  Down in the photo gallery I have also chosen some glossy stock photos of the various animals and birds to put in. I can also print a copy of the text from each day’s blog when we get home, and like a jigsaw it will all slot together to remind us of this incredible experience.

And finally, just after 5 we sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar and are now heading for Lisbon.  Back tomorrow from Lisbon and beyond…. xx

Saturday 18/4/2015 Day 102 Sea Day, mid-Mediterranean

Most of today we have been sailing in a straight line westwards, just north of the Tunisian and Algerian coastlines.  Although there’s freshness in the air in the morning it becomes very easy to sit in the warm sun by mid-morning and enjoy coffee and views of the endless peaceful sea, still very flat and smooth.

We did the early morning art class today so we could finish our Samoan warrior dancers, and learn how to create the impression of muscles by lightening and darkening different areas of our dancer’s chest and arms. Although I have managed to create shade and muscle effect, somehow my subject’s body doesn’t have the bulk required to look fierce.  Puny would be the best way to describe it – like one of those adverts for “before” boot camp, in need of nutritional advice. I might have to mess with it to save embarrassment.  Khachik’s on the other hand is just like a Samoan warrior : )

This afternoon became our alternative time for the gym.  Our own strong muscles are almost back to normal after the 39 laps, so we did 45 minutes cardio, a long yoga practce and then more stretching in the hot tub.   We were actually bobbling about for an hour as the water was hot and protected us from any cool breezes. 

At 5 we had drinks in the cabin with Jim, Judy, Phil and Debbie.  Always a treat, and always a thoughtful unexpected gift from Judy, like delicious Arcadia fudge last week, and tonight glossy cruise photos,  sunscreen and a very large glass of ginger beer.  I have developed a liking for ginger beer on these occasions with loads of ice, and today Judy shared her last bottle with me.  It’s been lovely having these pre-dinner get-togethers, getting to know each other even more and making plans to meet up again in the future and holiday in Australia.

Last but one Black Ties dinner - I will miss these.  the men don't feel the same at our table.  they feel restricted by the bow ties and sharp suits! The soft focus photos were lovely though.

Our entertainment after dinner tonight was an  American singer, a young man who really impressed us with his guitar, piano and ukulele as well as his voice and feel good renditions of songs by people like Roy Orbison and John Denver from the sixties and seventies, with a little fascinating life story telling - small farm, mum died when he was 7, dad introduced him to the music he now performs, now 32, married and baby due in a month, began performing when in college aged 21, rather loves beng a "Travelling Man". Lovely, lovely person.  First name Zack (I will hopefully come back with the surname). ........ingham (not Birmingham, ?Winningham)

Tomorrow we pass through the straights of Gibralta at 5 p.m. turn right for Lisbon Monday and then 2 sea days to Southampton. Can this really be happening?  Have 103 days passed already? Only when I read this blog and look at the pictures will I really believe it.

So bye for now, back tomorrow with tales from the Atlantic. XX 

Tuesday 14/4/2015 Day 98 Calm and Peaceful Sea Day to Piraeus in Greece

All day today we have been sailing northwards in the Mediterranean towards Greece.  In total today we have sailed 33621 miles, and this blog now has 43,264 words! We are out of the security measures now we have left the Near and Middle East, and can now look forward to leaving the curtains open and the lights on at night, not having soldiers, hailers and water canon on the decks and most importantly watching the sunrises from bed again.  

It has been bright and sunny today but there’s a definite hint of home in the cool 17C air, and on one occasion today I had my hoody on.  The sea is as flat as a pond, and I think will stay that way until we get to Lisbon, so a little longer without the motion discomfort bags. 

After breakfast we signed up for the MacMillan challenge on Thursday, to walk a half marathon on Deck 3, and then went and did an hour on the cardio machines in the gym in preparation, followed by half an hour of floor based yoga!  We have been feeling fit and kept our walking up every day, and as the weeks have gone on we believe we will each manage half of a half marathon quite easily, so we might do the sponsored challenge as a relay! Who knows, we may manage it all.   Today’s lunch, unusually, was chocolate fudge cake.  That is all. :)  

This afternoon in art we did a pencil drawing of an orang-utan with her baby (that’s Malay for “Person of the Jungle” we learned from a Malaysian fellow art student today). We are both very happy with the finished articles today.  Next art class, the day after Piraeus, we are going to do a watercolour painting of a Samoan dancer.  I am looking forward to that.

Tonight after dinner we listened to Clem Curtis, formerly (a long long time ago in the late 1960’s, but we both remember) of the Foundations.  A very understated but thoroughly enjoyable performance. Over the last 3 months we’ve got used to a lot of movement around the stage, arms all over the place, jumping off the stage and bringing audience up on their feet.  But there was none of that tonight.  He wasn’t as extreme as Van Morrison, because he did interact with the audience, but there was no embellishment and no cringeworthy or embarrassing behaviour.  It was a refreshing change.   You will know him if you grew up in the 1960’s – “Baby, now that I found you I can’t let you go” and “Build me up Buttercup”, but also a bit of Nat King Cole, “Unforgettable”, a little Barry White,  several other lovely 1970’s songs to reminisce to – “Me and Mrs Jones”, “You’ll Never Find”,  and his own rendition of Etta James “At Last”.  We have certainly experienced some diverse entertainment. I have managed to find a sample on You Tube.  He's doing fine at 74! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muaylzfjn6c

Tomorrow after disembarking in Piraeus we are on an excursion to Corinth and the Corinthian Canal.  A short canal this time, but still a highlight.  A long day ahead, leaving at 8 a.m. so we have an alarm call at 6 a.m so we can make sure we get breakfast before we go.  Lunch will be a local Greek meal – bring on the houmous, pitta, tzadziki, souflaki and baklava.  How we have missed you! The rest of the trip looks fabulous – ancient Greece, a walk in St Paul’s footsteps and the canal between two Greek seas.

It is time for bed now, so I will say goodnight and be back after Corinth tomorrow night. x

Monday 13/4/2015 Day 97 A day transiting the Suez Canal

Last night’s score was 4-2 to MUFC J. So we (Khachik I mean)  could get on with our Suez preparations without any sadness.....

Like a child the night before a special trip I was awake every couple of hours all through the night wondering if it was “first light” yet.  1 a.m. my wakefulness started, until finally at 6 a.m. Sam began her presentation through the ship cam channel on cabin tv. The ships engines were turned off at 3 and the anchor dropped.  But by 7 a.m. it became apparent that the southbound transit had been lucky and set off first and we would have to wait until around 11 a.m. to make our start in our convoy.  Not that it matters at all when you are on the sea.  It got more and more exciting as we realised that ahead of us in the queue were a US naval ship and a submarine.  Behind us were container ships and other cruise ships.  Like Panama it costs a ship a lot of money to cross – this time it was £400,000. We found out that 76 ships would be going through today, so not a bad income for a day.  It’s a good job too, because there’s no tourist industry left in Egypt. A few years ago everyone wanted to sail on the Nile, or visit Cairo.  Now tours are diverted away from Egypt.  Our 2 scheduled Egypt port stops were cancelled before embarkation for security reasons. 

All the way along the Egyptian coast on our port side there were armed soldiers keeping watch over the canal, all 120 miles of it from the Red Sea to the Med.  On land and sea was all the evidence of a successful oil producing country with moveable bridges, platforms and paraphernalia. 

Sam talked to us as we passed landmarks and went under the Suez Canal Bridge, giving us a lot of historical information and descriptions of the conflicts over Suez over the years.  Here's a pic of the souvenir from the Suez Transit.

The weather stayed fine and dry, hazy skies at first but then true blue, with very few clouds, cool early but warming up to about 20C throughout the morning. This meant we could be outside whenever we wanted without worrying about burning.

During the day a massive barbeque was set up outside today as most of the passengers were watching the transit from the decks.  Otherwise our day incorporated 60 focused minutes of cardio whilst looking out onto the sea at the front of the ship this morning, and a lovely art class this afternoon.  I had a bit of a cob on (only inside, no tantrums!) in art as it appears I am hopeless at drawing and painting flowers, and there has been no improvement in my flowers for the whole cruise.  Khachik’s flowers are always amazing, with soft petals and curves. Mine looked seriously flat and lifeless. Ah well, I will keep practising.

Dinner and an early night tonight.  Has to be when you’ve slept like a child on Christmas Eve the night before.  So I will say bye for now, until our sea day to Athens tomorrow. x

Sunday 12/4/2015 Day 96 Out of the Gulf of Aqaba up towards Suez

By today’s calculations we have travelled 32,893 miles. We have Egypt on both sides of us now, and the land is just close enough to see misty grey mountain silhouettes in the distance.  The Suez transit is coming up tomorrow and is yet another extraordinary highlight of this sector.  Tomorrow in the early hours (scheduled to be 3 a.m.) we anchor and queue up until we hear we can go.  Our convoy is expected to start transiting at first light, and will take 12 hours, during which we have a live commentary from the excursions team leader, Sam. She was tireless when we transited Panama, so I know this will be really interesting.

Today has been a quiet, uneventful day compared to yesterday in Petra.  The sun is shining but the temperature is dropping and you can see everyone donning their cardies and shawls outside on the decks now.  It is nevertheless a very pleasant 18C, bright sunshine and toasty warm when the wind drops.  It is the 10^th birthday of Arcadia, and there’s a party going on, with “prices slashed” (but only by 10%!) in celebration. In 10 years Arcadia has sailed 1,549,925 nautical miles, which we learn is the equivalent of 3 return trips to the moon.

And our chosen activities a.m. Gym? – good job done by both, 60 minutes total cardio for both and 30 minutes mat based yoga for me.

P.m. Art? A camel’s head, (photo from Petra) not bad but mine needs a little bit of cabin work to rough up the hair because it looks a bit smooth.

Otherwise it’s all about the elements today.  Just a force 3 wind, a little swell, wavelets and the ship is moving slowly at about 12 knots. 

The time is 6 p.m. here at the moment and that can only mean one thing today: the Manchester Derby has just begun.  For Khachik, room service dinner has been ordered, for me I will escape the ear piercing shrieks and attend my regular club dining slot, bringing Khachik his pre- ordered sugar free modification of a decadent dessert from the table when I’ve finished.

So I will say goodbye for now and report back from the Suez transit tomorrow. xx

Wednesday 8/4/2015 Day 92 Sailing between Yemen and Somalia, latitude 12, temp 30C

It’s the second sea day to Jordan and now we are sailing along the Gulf of Aden towards Aqaba. It’s another hot one so we are enjoying some educational activities indoors.  I am watching a documentary about the design and build of the Bahrain world trade centre’s twin towers with their environmentally friendly wind turbines, between the towers and powering them to save the equivalent of 6,000,000 barrels of oil p.a.   

We have once again spent a very healthy hour in the gym today, increasing our times and walking distance on the treadmill, rower, static bike and arm cycle. These machines are all positioned so we can see out of the windows to the front of the ship, but also have sockets for headphones so we can watch the Arcadia’s channels while we work.  We are maintaining safe and healthy exercising heart rates, all calculated electronically using our weight and age.  I had a lovely yoga practice afterwards too.  Next up was art – today’s watercolour was an autumn leafy landscape (Alderley Woods, that’s the Alderley Edge near Manchester).  Partly happy with this, partly not!  Easa's is the first one.  You have to guess which belongs to Khachik and which to me.

Tomorrow, a King Charles Spaniel.

Another part of the on-board university consists of whetting our appetite with information from the ports we have still to come on Sector 5. There’s a port talk on every sea day. The person doing all the port talks is called Sam.  She doesn’t tire, and she remains very professional calm and pleasant. Sometimes she has had to deal with tours not going quite to plan too, and some fellow passengers can get a bit heated. Anyway, back to the talks. Yesterday’s was Aqaba and today Piraeus. We are all set for these two.    

We are right in the middle of a profoundly troubled middle east, sailing between Yemen and Somalia but apart from the security measures on board you wouldn’t know it.   We will be visiting Petra when we arrive in Aqaba. We tourists have booked a whole day tour (10 hours) to get there, walk the walk to the Lost City, take a rest, lunch and then set off back for the ship. The weather forecast is 7-17C.  The walk is 5 miles to “the Treasury” and back, but you can go further if you have the energy. 

There are times when my own personal experiences and the happenings on this cruise are totally eclipsed by the bigger picture. This is one of those times.  I am really mindful of those people who belong in Syria, especially so because we are going to be in one of Syria’s neighbouring countries, conscious of all our wealth and privilege, whilst thousands of refugees fight for their lives having lost everything. I have been watching the devastation in Yarmouk on TV.  It was unimaginable horror. Even before .  I will not blog about this any more for now even though the human suffering around us is dominating my thoughts, there are a few good reasons I don't want to discuss it here.  However, my thoughts are really not only about this journey.

After Aqaba we have another few days at sea, sailing through the Suez Canal, no longer stopping in Egypt instead heading straight for Piraeus for Athens, Greece.  On that day we have booked “Ancient Corinth and Canal Cruise”. That’s when our ship’s security measures will be lifted.

Once we have visited Athens we will only have two stops left – Valetta in Malta and Lisbon in Portugal.  How can that be? Honestly I cannot believe we have been away 3 months already.  I will when I read this 40,000 word blog back!

When we got back to our cabin we had a lunch invite for tomorrow under the door.  This is the second lunch for half of the world cruisers today and the other half the day after.  We loved the first one.  We were sitting on that occasion with an officer called Victoria Fletcher, who has remembered us ever since and even yesterday stopped for a chat, admiring our Thai silk!  I am looking forward to something just as good tomorrow.  

I forgot to say yesterday that we also had some P and O post to let us know that we have moved up a tier on the loyalty programme.  We are now on the “Mediterranean” tier entitling us to 8.5% discount on our on-board spends, giving us great satisfaction.  That has been applied to our tours for this sector, a coffee each in Costa and yesterday’s shopping spree in Piccadilly on deck 3. 

We like this.

We are just getting ready for dinner so will say bye for now.  Sea days make me focus a lot on food, as there is so much of it, and so many choices.  Perhaps the blog will reflect this tomorrow, as there are going to be two scrummy menu’s to report!  Bye for today.