Monday evening August 9th.2010
The Dublin dock area is huge, we were parked at Alexandra Quay among P&O ferries, Irish ferries and a fleet of cargo ships. Across from us was the Silver Seas, Silver Cloud, it arrived behind us this morning.
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All passengers were aboard early so we were able to push away about 20 minutes ahead of schedule. The captain announced that to make it to our next port "Heimaey" Iceland on time he would have to go flat out, so the extra time was a bonus. He made an interesting maneuver with the thrusters pushing us out into the narrow channel, pivoting 180 degrees then heading out into the Irish sea, turned left pointing the bow toward Iceland where we are scheduled to arrive at 1400h the day after tomorrow, "Wednesday"
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Coffee has been ordered for the much more respectable hour of 0830. In about 55 minutes from now we will be passing between the western most tip of Scotland and the Eastern most tip of Ireland heading in a North Westerly direction into the Atlantic Ocean. It is expected to be a little wobbly at last, as so far the seas have been extremely tranquil, more in keeping with the Pacific really.
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After dinner we joined our table mates in the Crows Nest for an hour of jazz with a quartet from the HAL Cats band, they were excellent. I was tired so slipped out for a breath of the sea air that's been shrinking my clothes and no, I did not have the fruit plate, I'm ashamed to tell you what I did have but it was yummy. :)
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I was hoping to capture a promising sun set but living on the starboard side, got my timing wrong and missed it. Soon we'll be back in the land of the midnight sun, oh well I have taken a few over the past three weeks so I've not been skunked.
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Time to tuck myself in and read for a while, I'll wish you all bon nuit, goodnight Mrs. Calabash, where ever you are:)
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Tuesday August 10th. 2010.
0905h
Good morning, coffee arrived on time, Dorothy was up and walked her two miles while I was still clutching my stuffed Teddy and dreaming of fruit plate! I had slept well so fell out of bed, stumbled to the bathroom, completed my ablutions and dressed just in time for the room steward to think I'd been up for ages.
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We are spoiled for choice with activities today, for me it's a toss up between the lecture by Canadian author George Sranko, or the computer workshop. There's a host of other activities too but those are what appeal to me. This afternoon we'll take in the talk on our next two Iceland ports of call. In the end I missed the talk and computer workshop. Our host's Buddy & Lynn hold coffee chats on sea days so that's what we decided to do, "tempus fugit" as they say and the next thing we knew it was almost time for lunch.
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We'd been invited to lunch in the Pinnacle grill with friends from California so we skipped breakfast. The voice from the bridge announced that we had covered 295 miles since our departure from Dublin, we have a headwind slowing us down but still expect to reach Heimaey on schedule. With the wind we are making maximum speed, 18 knots. Temperature is in the high 50s,f and will be dropping as we get further north. Lunch was good though I wasn't hungry, saving my appetite for dinner perhaps. I took some sea air while standing at the rail contemplating how to solve the worlds problems, decided it was above my pay scale, so went to the cabin for a nap.
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Dress is formal tonight and following dinner there's the masquerade ball. We had planned on going but didn't feel up to it once we got back to the cabin. Dinner was good and though I didn't have the fruit plate, I had lemon sherbet rather than the tempting chocolate choices. Sorry no pics, but it takes waaaaay too long :(
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To be continued….
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