At Sea

We have been on Queen Victoria for 5 weeks now. I have never been on a ship for this long before, yet I still feel that we have only just got on board. The wonderful days are simply going by too fast. I want to savor every minute of being on the ship; this is such a magical place.

Back to reality. There was no way to avoid it – we had accumulated a large mound of washing, and our laundry basket was overflowing. I missed breakfast and made an early attempt to get a washing machine, but they were all already in use. One of the 3 machines had stopped working yesterday, and still had not been fixed, leaving only 2 functional machines. I am not surprised that the machines have issues; they seem to be running constantly. Anyway there was a chair available so I got out my book and sat reading until a machine became available.

There was very little gossip going on in the launderette today, which was rather disappointing. This is usually where I hear what is happening on the ship. One thing of interest is that we had all heard a call earlier this morning for the medical response team to go to deck 3 under lifeboat 10, so we were wondering what had happened. One gentleman said he heard that someone had slipped and fallen while walking around the promenade deck. This made me wonder whether there are more falls on QE and QV’s faux wood promenade deck than there are on QM2’s teak one. Maybe instead of selling genuine QM2 teak decking coasters in the shop they should have used some of that old teak for our promenade deck.

Finally everything was washed and dried, and it was lunchtime. Although we are already a day away from the Straits of Magellan and the bottom of the continent, it was warm and sunny, so after lunch Brian wanted to go to the pool. I wanted to finish the necklace I was working on, which would not be possible sitting around the pool, so I opted for the Commodore Club instead. Yay, there was a table by the windows at the front, my favourite perch, so I had a Coke and settled in for some serious beading. The current necklace is a very easy pattern, but somehow I got my thread all knotted, spilled my beads, and bent the needle. Despite such issues I did finish the necklace, and I think it looks great. Maybe I will be brave enough to attempt one of the difficult ones now. I will certainly need a new needle.

While I was sitting and beading a huge flock of black albatross joined us. They were flying right in front of the prow, and then swooping down into the ocean. It was a lovely sight, they are interesting looking birds. The only issue was every time I thought of the word albatross; I was reminded of the Monty Python skit, which intruded on the beauty of the moment.

Tonight was another formal night, and the Black and White Ball. In the areas of the ship that we frequented everyone was in formal dress, mostly with the black and white theme, and it did look lovely. However, one man was wearing a bright red tuxedo, with a black shirt and red polka dot bow tie. Somehow, it just didn’t work among all the very stylish James Bond look alikes. Maybe he will wear the same outfit for the Valentine’s Day Ball next week.

I had chateau briande and a lemon soufflé for dinner. Both were of excellent quality. It still amazes me that the chefs can produce such wonderful food in such great quantities.

During dinner we had seen some lights on the horizon on the port side of the ship. When we got back to the cabin we decided to check them out. There were about 12 areas of very bright lights, but we were unable to discern what they were even with the binoculars. Possibly oil platforms? Anyway, they looked somewhat eerie out there in the middle of nowhere. There was a full moon, and a lovely bright moon path that seemed to be guiding us into the bright star lit night.