We were up just after eight o’clock, as usual, and looking out of our portholes we couldn’t tell where the sky ended and the sea started. Fog is common in northern latitudes in the summer; the warm air above the cold sea leads to a dense mist above the waves. We hoped the weather would clear later.
After breakfast I had only one thought in my head; to go to the shop and buy one of those fantastic globes. The large ones with a 9” diameter were £320.00, but the smaller 4.5” diameter globes cost £100.00. With our 5% discount we’d get it for £95.00, so I happily went into the shop and bought one. It will look a treat on our dining room table which is quite near a big window, so there will be lots of light to keep the world turning. 🙂
At 9.45am we went along to the Neptune Lounge to listen to the port talk, where the speaker was telling us all about the ports of Qaqortoq and Nanortalik, which we will be visiting later on in the cruise. It was very interesting, even if the guy did tend to go on a little bit.
The talk finished about half-past ten, so it gave us nice time to return to cabin #4125 and get smartened up a little, as we had been invited to the Oceans Club cocktail party at 11.15am. As mentioned previously, we are now Gold members; only Gold and Silver members receive an invitation.
Once we were ready, we made our way to the Neptune Lounge where Captain Degerlund and his officers, as well as some of the entertainment staff, were there to greet us. We enjoyed some canapés and a couple of glasses of fizz each, whilst listening to the Captain tell us that if you added up the nights spent on board a FO ship by all the members present, it would come to over 100 years. The Future Cruises staff then gave us a talk and showed some slides, showing the cruises planned for 2017/18. We already have a couple of future FO cruises booked for 2017, and we can’t book anymore because we don’t get enough time off work! 🙁
The Oceans cocktail party finished in nice time for us to go to lunch. Sometimes it feels as if we do nothing but eat and drink on cruises! It’s no joke that you have to wear all your tight-fitting clothes at the start of the cruise and leave the loose ones until later! 🙂
Venturing out on deck after lunch, we saw that the fog had indeed dispersed and the day was bright and clear. The noon announcement containing the navigational information told us that we were over 65ºN so it was no surprise that the sea breeze felt rather chilly. Quite a few whale-watchers and bird-watchers were out, binoculars sweeping the seascape hoping to spot something interesting. These people are really dedicated; they spend hours and hours outside hoping for a few seconds of excitement.
At 3.30pm we went once again to the Neptune Lounge to listen to a lecture about solar and lunar eclipses. We had to leave at five to four, however, to be up at the Lido Lounge in time for the quiz with our ‘regular’ team. We seemed to do quite well in the quiz, scoring 18/20, but once again we lost the tie-breaker. Is this going to be the first cruise where we never win a single quiz?
Following on from the quiz was the bingo, and we decided to play as it was quite fun last time. Trevor won £18.00 again! I have never, ever won even a single line in bingo, and today was no exception.
The bingo ended nice time for us to go and get washed and changed in time for dinner. Once again we enjoyed the company of our fellow passengers; we found out the other couple on our table are called Doug and Sue. We regaled each other with what we’d been up to during the day and I told Willie and Lynn about the fabulous rotating globe I’d bought; they seemed interested and said they’d go and have a look next time they were passing the shops.
Tonight’s entertainment in the Neptune Lounge was a comedian called Simon Sands. He was all right I suppose, mildly amusing, although I had heard a lot of his jokes before.
You know what’s coming next, right? Yep, the quiz. The subject was children’s television programmes. Children’s TV programmes!! How on earth would we know the answers, unless of course they were from the 1960s when I used to watch “Watch With Mother”. We did appallingly, only scoring 6/15.
We finished the evening in the Lido Lounge, listening to the pianist Colin James do his tribute to the songs of Neil Diamond. He was very good, and we enjoyed a few cocktails before returning to our cabin after midnight as usual.
Tomorrow we were due to reach Greenland, and we would set foot on our 80th country. 🙂