part 2 ramblings at sea...

Its day 20 something on the good ship Borealis... 2 full days from landfall... Pria de Victoria. Sunny, calm - no wind all that is lacking is a comfy seat in a quiet spot..

Yesterday we had the scrap heap boat building competition.

It was well supported and there were 8 amazing entries. Seriously stiff competition... 7 of the 8 floated but the fantastic - or rather the astonishing model of the actual Borealis couldn't handle the turbulence And she capsized...

In the end, after all the models holding the 10 'passengers' - actually cans of pop- had been floated in the pool the winner had to be decided by the loudest cheer.

Our ship 'The Astonishing Icon of the Pool' got a cheer to match its size🤣🤣. By far the biggest boat produced.. floating beautifully, incredibly stable with the 10 cans disguised as jolly pirates and prisoners peering out of portholes, it was greeted with a positive roar and shrill whistles... outright winner!!!! Our friends stepped up to receive the prize... bottle of fizz and a book about the RNLI - our boat could probably serve as a lifeboat🤣🤣

Moment of triumph😍😁😍

In the evening it was the captains cocktail party...incorporating the welcoming of the haggis - celebrating Burns night.

Copius amounts of free alcohol and canapes ensured a good atmosphere - it was formal dress so had our gladrags on - the 7 oclock club started there and then continued upstairs.... everytime I sit next to the artist in residence I seem to drink too much... obviously shes a bad influence!!

Last nights wine inhalation left me desperately thirsty for a drink of something (non alcoholic) at 7.00 am this morning... we can only get hot water from our tap so I got dressed as quietly as I could and went up to deck 8 for an early breakfast - too early - the cafe didnt open til 7.30... I finally grabbed a cuppa, watched the sunrise, rare occurance for me, and then went back to bed.

Dr Fred had another lecture in the afternoon... good crowd... went down well... stargazing in the evening didn't happen.. it was cloudy and windy. There was also a noticable chill in the air. Dr Fred executed plan b.. the scale of the universe, talking about the different planets as he disappeared past the cafe into the library... He followed up with his demonstration on the expanding universe which led to some very interesting and complicated questions - which he just took in his stride. Given that its 11pm people were still keen to sit and chat about thermal dynamics.... In fact once again some guests said that this plan b session had been better than stargazing as you can look at stars any night but you dont often get a small group audience with Dr Fred........ his fan club is growing🤣🤣

We've got over the excitment of the availability of unhealthy food at supper club - been there, done that (too often), now we just a pinch a couple of biscuits to have with a cup of tea in bed!

1 sea day left before we weather the storm and land at Praia de Vicoria - it was a quiet day - we are feeling the clock changes an hour every second night losing so far 3 hours... one more to go. More reading, more sewing, theres a very definete change to the weather. Still sunny but getting fresher - and quite a rolling sea. The ship is rocking this last leg and we are warned it will get worse. We drank the prize cava from our boat win and whiled away the evening watching a film.

Scotland part 2

The second half of the week continued in much the same vein. We had one rainy afternoon which was actually quite nice to be holed up in the house with the rain lashing the windows. It probably wasn't quite so nice for the two visitors that came on their bikes but they're tough cookies - and its only water- but I did feel sorry for them having to cycle six miles back down the track in the wind and rain, but given Scotland, it wasn't as bad as it could be. The big quest for the 2nd half of the week was to find some deer antiers! The chap that owned the house dropped in to visit - he was a very friendly fella and was chatting about how this was the time of year when all the Stags lost their antlers (he collected them and sold them) so after that we were on the serious lookout. It's always been Fred's mission to find some dropped antlers.... The Monro baggers continued with the mission to bag the remaining three Monros... there is discussion as whet...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town. Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now. The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art.... Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

verdant lushness

Its a never ending island hop... today we hopped of the boat at Kingstown, on the island St. Vincents and Grenadine. Once through the usual port duty free - cheap booze and diamonds to go milarkey we were straight into the town... crazy noisy smelly chaos... refreshingly no tat shops for tourists, just local markets and street traders all vying for local sales. Music blasting from everywhere, cars (very battered and often very pimped) all over the roads - parked in the middle of the street, loading, unloading, chatting seemingly oblivious to the total traffic jam caused behind them... We walked through this mayhem - the temperatures were rising probably about 30 degrees - tourists evident by trying to walk on the shady side of the street - even when we turned off the main drag and there were less people it was still like carnival time with music blasting everywhere. Its very atmospheric and mostly promotes a good vibe although I have heard '3 little birds' everywhich way a...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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