the next 2 days at sea...

The sea days were sunshine filled rather unexciting days... the first day passed - posh lunch in posh restaurant, drinks at 7.00, - it was formal night and yet another theme - the masquarade ball.... well.... what happens on the ship stays on the ship 🤣🤣 so another opportunity to embrace cruise life. My friend on board runs the drama classes. She has a bottomless suitcase which includes all sorts of goodies like masks and trimmings to make them match my 'formal' frock... we dressed up, went for dinner and in honour of the occaision we dropped into the neptune lounge where the masked shindig was happening.

We just wanted a quick looksee at the entertainment. It was packed - lots of peeps in classy frocks and elaborate masks dancing the night away.... that might even have been the track playing. We withdrew, headed up to the quiet solitude of the comfy seats aft, (latest term for back of ship) where we had a night cap before once again ( as we had to walk past) risking the mayhem of masks - still deciding not for us and finally turning in for the night.

The next day disappeared - Dr Fred had another well attended lecture in the morning - all about star formation - lots of interest and a lot of questions making him late for posh (edible) lunch... then there was an afternoon party on the pool deck side.

Live music and complementary cocktails - which got stronger at every pour....

now we are pally with some of the waiters 🤣 this was lethal. Meanwhile out at sea drama was unfolding... a ships annoucment declared we were delayed, we needed to slow down, and investigate a potential incident. It became immediately evident that there was a capsized vessel some distance from our ship. The Balmoral circled round the overturned boat to determined the situation. It wasn't a comfortable feeling... but in the end after obvious communication with the rescue services no further action was required- it appeared everyone had been rescued and the ship fired up the engines and we carried on back on course for Malaga.

Several sangrias... rum punches later plus a fabulous dollup of sunshine we had to admit to being quite tipsy and checked in for a nana nap. As I said the day disappeared - we did wake up and could have made 7.00 club but it felt like hurrying. We chilled out, had a lazy cup of tea. Decided the image in the mirror looked like we were on the space station

(Oh dear prob still tipsy) and slowly got ourselves into star gazing mode... we had nearly 3 hours to reorientate ourselves.

It was am almost full moon but a reasonabley clear night - still lots of people up on deck 11 - with a moon so bright it was difficult to see many stars bur there was still something to observe.

We need more binoculars especially for nights like this one where the moonlight obscures the stars.... Finally after a lot of questions and chatting with interested people we went to supper club - only the second time on this trip - the novelty of chicken wings has worn off 🤣🤣

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...

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...

Almost last chapter... In which our Go Stargazing team watch Astonishing Aurora Borealis seen from the deck of the Astonishing Borealis!!!

The weather brightened considerably and the snowy peaks lining our sail down the fjiords looked glorious and sparkly in the sunshine against a (mainly) blue sky back drop. More awesome scenary.... the Go Stargazing team wrapt up their lectures ... only searching for the illusive Northern Lights remained. The tension from the night before dissolved in the sunshine the forecast for Aurora borealis was looking fairly positive - it was the captains farewell cocktsil party so everyone had their gladrags on.. We ate dinner and sky remained clear so we headed back to our room and donned as many layers as we could move in and proceeded to deck 10 in anticipation of stars and northern lights..... it did not dissappiont - just we got there as the bridge announced that the lights could be seen on the starboard side of the ship. It was stunning. Slowly the intensity built. The auroral green became brighter and bigger areas appe...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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