At Sea Monday 30th Jan

I made a mistake – we have three days at sea before arriving at Cabo San Lucas on 1^st Feb.  Just as well as Keith and I both seem to have caught colds – we’re dining in our room tonight to avoid spreading it to the others on our table – also missing the Captain’s cocktail party but there’ll be another one no doubt. 

Surprisingly there is no time to get bored when we are at sea – particularly in this climate (still 29 degrees though we are heading north now so it will get colder till we reach San Francisco)  Typical day goes like this:

Up at 6.30 to go to gym – followed by breakfast then sunbathing or swimming. At 10.00 and 11.00 we usually go to the Cunard Insights lectures – these have generally been really good –  there are other activities but have avoided the bingo!  Also demonstrations by chefs and the shops trying to sell art, jewellery and clothes.  Today the first lecture was about the dolphins and whales we can hope to see in these waters (gray, sperm and humpbacks – very rarely a blue whale)  and the second was another from Gerald Scarfe talking about his work with films, theatre  and Pink Floyd – he designed the video that goes with The Wall.  This is followed by lunch, sitting on deck with coffee then the watercolour painting class – I am getting really into this but Keith is not quite so keen.  We then usually have a cup of tea (could be accompanied by scones cream and jam but we are trying to avoid it!) then walk around the promenade deck or play shuffleboard.  Time then to go back to our cabin, read for a bit have a drink and get ready for evening meal at 8.30.  After dinner there is a choice of entertainment – in the theatre they have had singers, comedians (Mike Doyle was brilliant), ventriloquist and variety shows, also there are various bars and live music – we went to a great deck party on Saturday - or ballroom dancing but we can’t do that – failed at the first waltz lesson.

We did see lots of dolphins out of the cabin window this afternoon – apparently they like to play in the wake of the ship – there were some mothers and babies leaping about.  We’re going to spend a lot of time looking for whales tomorrow, would be magical to see one of the big ones close up. The next stop is on 1^st Feb.