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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....





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