Skip to main content

all at sea again...

We are off again.. once again on the 'Beautiful Balmoral' - a bit of an in joke .. but she is a great ship and returning to sail on her again so soon feels a bit like a second home. This time we are heading to Norway.. in search of the northern lights.  We had been allocated a perfectly fine cabin but on arrival we found that due to an (undisclosed) issue with that cabin we had, once again, been upgraded... so we find ourselves in a roomy pleasant cabin but sadly with little view - or rather a very good view of a lifeboat!!! Personally I'd rather have a less roomy cabin and a view of the sea but only paying guests get that choice so I'm just going to appreciate what we have... 
On this trip we are joined by another 'go stargazing' astronomer as hopefully there will be lots to look at... (they've got a sea view) 

So we found our sea legs...reacquainted ourselves with the ship layout, were amazed that some of the staff remembered us- (not sure if thats a good thing or not 🤣🤣) had a pleasant late dinner, a glass of wine and done the enrichment team meeting. It was a long day as the boat was delayed due to bad weather - but seems quite calm as we sailed away from Newcastle.

There are not so many sea days on this journey but the first day takes us across the North Sea and it's been reasonably calm With a little bit of a swell.  Because it's the seaday the speakers are on hand, and Dr Fred is kicking them off with his introduction to stargazing talk - as usual to a packed house...

The demographic of this trip is considerably younger than our previous cruise. There are quite a lot of young people here which evens the average age out, and we don't feel quite so like teenagers as we did before🤣🤣 ... in fact I would go as far to say there are actual teenagers here!!
Glorious clear skies tonight and both astronomers have been out on deck wirh excited guests hoping to spot some aurora...

The North Sea is full of oil rigs, and I have to how pretty they look lit up at night.. they are like ethereal fairy lights littering the sea - dont bother with pollution/ climate change comments - making them wont change how glittery they look and you would be preaching to the converted... just saying.... 

 as I post this no sign of aurora but its nor midnight yet... check in tomorrow to see if it appeared... and tomorrow we should start to enjoy some of the scenic coast line I have been looking forward to, watch this space....





Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Autumnal Garden Days

I love these (rare) warm sunny late summer days and there is all sorts of lovely things  going on in my garden... I counted 12 red admiral butterflies whizzing around the over grown ivy which I had been about to hack down but then left until the flutterbies have finished with it... The late blooms add a dash of colour and the daisy strewn lawn is littered with autumnal leaves, debris from my brief half an hour of slash and burn and the stone wall is covered in glorious soft moss all shiny and tactile with a few late nasturtiums loitering. I've hacked out the brambles for this year, sadly I missed the fruit as we were away, ditto the strawberries, we never seem to get the fruit before the birds so I've made space and moved the plants that were getting swamped and so not performing to their potential - hopefully next year they will literally blossom now they have light and room to flourish.
Post a Comment
Read more

Total Eclipse Spain 2026

Eclipse day!!!!  Most of the photos on here were taken by friends...my phone died...  I dont use names on here but you know who you are thank you....  This will be Dr Freds 8th eclipse and my 6th... I have 100% clear viewing and its continued that way. Our friends have this amazing house tucked away on the side of a hill - fortuitously right on the centre line of the 2026 eclipse.  And... to make it even better they have a roof terrace which gave us an almost perfect elevation to see the total eclipse in all its glory.   Dr Fred wasnt sure at first - he worried that as totality was so close to sunset we might not be high enough before the sun disappeared under the ridge.  So, the evenings leading up to the night of the actual event, required a lot of balancing on the roof with spirit levels at various degrees and exact timings for exact positioning of the sun and considerable maths.... yes it was complicated but it p...
5 comments
Read more

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful.   There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...
1 comment
Read more