DAY 14 Jan 26 - Sea Day Pacific Ocean

This is the second of two consecutive sea days as we cruise about 60 miles off the Peruvian coast towards Callao where we dock tomorrow. It is also Australia Day (Aussie, Aussie, Aussie – Oi, Oi, Oi!!) and the ship does have a few of our cousins on board. In fact two cabin just down from ours houses inhabitants from this great country

Soon after the sun rose at approximately 6.45 it turned into a beautiful morning with temperatures climbing to the high seventies.

Our towel animal presented by Deden was still intact from the night before but now nicely perched on our sofa. These really are works of art and it's just a shame that they have to be eventually dismantled.

We sat out on the balcony for an hour or so while Maria ate her light breakfast and then we decided to go down to the aft pool deck and take some sun there. We had learn our lesson last week so we took plenty of protection and I kept myself quite covered up as it was very sunny and quite warm with a sea breeze.

Unfortunately the installation work on the new cabins below could be heard in the form of loud banging from time to time. Yesterday Bill and Mary Ann had complained to the Front Desk about the disruption but alas to no avail. The cabin building work is due to completed in a week or so and to date had not been an issue for us.

Despite the seas being quite calm the pool was swirling its water from end to end and every now and again it would cascade with a big splash over the deck. This was until someone had the sense to empty the already slowly draining pool.

The two spars situated near by were steaming hot and very inviting but I thought I would leave that pleasure until when temperatures were a little lower.

By about 11 o'clock we decided that we had had enough sun for the day and returned to our lovely airy cabin. The Britain Today and ship edition of the New York Times had already been delivered to the stateroom so I could now a have a good read and catch up on British and World affairs. We also of course have our CNN (Australian edition I think) from which I had been delighted to learn earlier in the morning that Andy Murray had defeated Rafa Nadal in the Quarters in the Aussie Open.

Before retiring last night I sent off three e-mails to my various tour contacts adding Gary and Gerry’s names to the list. This morning my contact Christian, the Van Man from Valparaiso, replied acknowledging the change as did our man in Arica.