Friday March 29^th

At Sea

Is this Brexit day or not?

Brian insists on watching an American news program every night when, after sundowners, we are getting ready for dinner. I dislike this program as it gets stuck on one political topic, and you have no idea what is actually happening in the US and the world as a whole. Like what is happening about Brexit?

Most of the ladies at the craft group are from the UK, but as we worked on our projects this morning it was clear that they also knew nothing about the latest on Brexit, so I didn’t feel quite so out of the loop.

I finished the necklace I was working on at the craft group, and proudly wore it to meet up with Brian in the Commodore Club. His only comment was that it was “very big”. I took that as him not liking it, but later he tried to make things better by saying maybe it wasn’t THAT big. Well I like it, big or not. I do usually wear very small jewellery, but I though this would be fun for a change.

At his noon announcement Captain Hashmi said that we had entered the International Transit Corridor during the night. We are currently 50 miles from the Yemeni coast, and 112 miles from the Somalia. There are Chinese, Russian, and Indian naval ships in the vicinity. I looked out, but couldn’t see them. We will be in the corridor until tonight, and will enter the Red Sea tomorrow. While we make this transit, the bridge will be closed to viewing until we are in the Red Sea. I do like watching what’s happening on the bridge, but do understand their need for secrecy.

I had lunch in the Carinthia Lounge. It was totally packed, and I struggled to find a table where I could consume my flatbread and salad, and enjoy Lara Szabo’s harp music. I remember the day when the Winter Garden was a cold empty space. Not any more, it always seems to be full now, and the light meals you can get there seem to be very popular. Instead of using the Winter Garden to find a quiet table to eat at when the Kings Court was crowded, now you have to look for a table in the Kings Court when the Carinthia Lounge is full. I like that kind of progress!

After our success at the slow waltz class (not that we have actually danced in the Queens Room just yet), I had tried to talk Brian in to the cha cha class a few days ago, without success. I tried again with the tango class, but again I got rejected. So it may take two to tango, but it won’t be this two. I gave today’s class a miss alas.

Since embarking in Dubai our ride has been very smooth. It simply doesn’t feel like you are on board and ocean liner. There is so little a sense of movement. There seemed to be more movement when we were staying at the QE2 hotel. Captain Hashmi promised rougher weather tomorrow. I hope he is correct.

We went out onto deck 14 to search for navy vessels, but all we saw was a small container ship. I asked the deck officer if he knew where they were, and he reminded me of an incident several years ago when a US navy ship came too close to QM2, and scrambled a lot of the electronics on board. We had embarked on the ship a few days later in Dubai, and I remember people complaining about problems with their cameras. Maybe it’s a good thing the navy is staying out of sight today!

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon, so we decided to take advantage of the great outdoors rather than attend any of the lectures or concerts. It’s amazing that on a ship with over 2000 passengers, we easily found a lovely spot near the Terrace Pool with no difficultly, and armed with our sunscreen, hats, and books, spent the afternoon basking and swimming, with the occasional beer for Brian and Pina Colada for me coming our way. It was perfect. The best part was that I as the only person in the pool, so swimming my laps was very easy. We decided that it has been great doing all of these exotic cruises and crossings, but maybe it was time to take a totally warm weather cruise again. Hmmmmmm. The QM2 December Caribbean voyage sounds like it would fit the bill, I must pay the future voyage sales people a quick visit………..

The show was early tonight because it was the Big Band Night in the Queens Room after dinner, so I left the pool to go and watch Steve Hewlett, a ventriloquist. He is an amazing ventriloquist, but not all of his jokes were great. Still it was fun.

Having just been the 6 of us for dinner at our table for dinner every night, we were surprised that the other couple finally showed up tonight. They are a British couple, Heather and Geoff, from up north. Like our other dinner companions they are well traveled, and Geoff will be doing a presentation on the Titanic later on during the voyage. Not that he actually traveled on the Titanic of course. Heather has spent some time in Syria, while Geoff seems to have been kept busy running several nightclubs. He also has 9 cats. Anyway, they seemed to be an interesting couple, but I will not be surprised if they don’t join us again for another meal because it really didn’t seem like Geoff was enjoying himself.

After dinner the others headed off to the Big Band Ball, but knowing that the likelihood of getting Brian on to the dance floor was slim, we decided to go to the Commodore Club for a nightcap instead. It was very crowded, but we were able to find a table. I must say that in the evenings I much prefer the Commodore Clubs on Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria. The seating arrangement is better, it doesn’t seem to be as noisy, and somehow the ambiance is better. Still I do love being there!

Tonight we are entering the Bab El Mandeb strait on our way to the Red Sea. At its most narrow the strait is 16 nautical miles wide, separating Yemen on the starboard side from Djibouti and Eritrea on our Port side. We looked out, but could not see the lights of land out there. There were however, hundreds of stars above us. One advantage of lowering the ship’s lights at night is that the stars seem brighter