“The best cure for sea sickness is to sit under a tree.” – Spike Milligan
There are no trees at sea... or hills or grass but there is a sense of vastness - big skies and huge expanses of water. Theres also very little wild life... quite a few dolphins come by the ship and out at a distance the odd whale can be spotted - if you are in the right place at the right time and I rarely am....
That all taken into account on a sunny day its very pleasant to sit up on the aft deck with a sketch pad and a glass of something nice... I'm doing dry January on dry land... what happens on acruise ship stays on a cruise ship......
On this trip we are sailing across the Bay of Biscay. Heading for the Canary Islands stopping for a day at La Coruna and then Maderia. Dr Fred has his usual talks and star gazing sessions and we are hoping for some warmer clear evenings.
A non eventful drive down to Southampton see us board the beautiful Balmoral... our favoured ship. After a bit of faffing we finally got settled in a cabin (took 3 goes) - our luggage turned up eventually and we settled in unpacked and started checking out the ship... it feels like we went home on holiday for christmas 🤣🤣... all the staff are the same and welcomed us back enthusiastically.
Nothing new to report - At the enrichment team meeting there were loads of new faces so I suggested 7.00 clock club and there were some takers.... We arranged to meet the next night.
It wasnt long before we were on out favourite spot - aft deck drinking wine.
Sadly it all went a bit downhill from there obviously the weather as we left England was not good. It was snowing, but there was a big storm coming and we had to get in front of it so the boat put its skates on and sped across the channel into the Bay of Biscay. Choppy seas and in the morning we found out that we would not be stopping in la Coruna because the weather was so bad we would not be able to dock this meant another full day at sea🙁🙁. Absolutely nothing that can be done about this but it's a bit disheartening to think that we missed a lovely Spanish resort.. but there we are.
Meanwhile sleep eluded us. The cabin that we've finally ended up in seems to be underneath a room full of machinery and possibly nightly Robot Wars. There was an awful lot of whirring, juddering, humming, screeching and quite a few loud crashes.. all in all a pretty terrible night's sleep!!
Dr Fred had to do his talk in the morning...which he delivered to packed house I went to art class. We were tired but we decided to see if it was as bad the next night before we set out to do something about it...
The next evening was a formal night. We donned our beautiful outfits - my sparkly trousers and Dr Freds borrowed velvet jacket and we went to The Captain's cocktail party. I always feel quite lucky if I managed to score two free drinks but this time I got three VERY large glasses of red wine! After the cocktail party we went up to the bar and met up with some people and then ended up almost partying ... so by the time I went to bed I was fairly comatose and although we were woken up several times by clattering we did manage to sleep..
I'm trying to weigh all this up - we have been really lucky with great digs on almost every cruise we have been on - so we are bound to get a bum cabin every now and then ..... but neither Dr Fred or I function well with little sleep... and it is nonstop noise😮💨
Day 5 see us continuing with very little sleep - no spanish stop and very little possibility of cabin change in spite of constant noise... I'm still working this... the cable car in Funchal is not open.. a disappointing minor irritation (irritations become bigger when sleep deprived) and for some reason I no longer have duvet cover on my duvet... I really shouldn't have to chase bedding - yes I'm getting very grumpy now 🤣🤣
Crossing the Bay of Biscay was bouncy but endurable... but we are finally in Funchal Madeira and its a place we like.
A couple of hours off the ship... a walk round fabulous christmas lights
and a sparkly christmas market
which included a very fabulous massive nativity scene.
Then a drink in a lovely park bar with far reaching views
followed by a very tasty meal and my equilibrium is restored. I may not get much sleep but I agreed to inform guest services every time we have noise intrusion 🤣🤣 and we have a great day out planned for tomorrow.
Sorry its a grumpy post but I am feelingbetter now...
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