BLOGGER IS NOW ABLE TO HANDLE PHOTOS AGAIN. ALL IS NOW WELL AND PHOTOS HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THE PREVIOUS TWO DAY’S BLOGS.
Thankfully today is a sea day as it gave us an opportunity to put photos on the last two days' BLOGS that were published without my camera shots being included. It was obviously to do with the strength of the satellite over the frozen southern continent. The signal strength was just too weak, I assume, to allow photos to be downloaded. At 6.30 this morning, once I had had my early morning coffee, I tried downloading photos to my blog and hey bingo it worked, much to my great relief.
The rest of the morning was taken up with sorting out what was to go where.....quite a big job it turned out to be.
A few days ago we invited all out tables mates to a pre-dinner drinks party in our suite.
I still had a con-siderable drink lake so was happy to offer some hospitality.(Pictured here is Margaret, Mary Ann and Maria).
We also took the opportunity of having next door neighbours John and Barbara in as well. 
So it was a big gathering of 12 of us.(Pictured here are John, Barbara, Maria and Bruce).
Deden and Edgar again provided a wonderful service in supplying us with extra wine glasses and tumblers for spirits and cocktails. Room service were also brought in on the act with the supply of two large bowls of mixed nuts and sliced lemons.
We all knew one another quite well by now, I mean the table mates anyway, as we had been together for over a month, so there was no standing on ceremony.(Pictured here are Mary Ellen, Gerry and Margaret).
Drinks were poured and then more drinks were poured again as the refreshments kept flowing. My two bottles of Pisco Sours that I had retained since our first port of call in Chile, Arica, were soon emptied. The Scotch and Gin bottles too had an outing. Only the red wine seemed to attract no takers.
(Pictured here are Keith, Gary, Bruce, Me and Bill). We didn't receive any comp-laining phone calls despite the gathering getting noisier and noisier as time went by.
All in all I think it was a successful do.
Jennifer visited us today with a nice little montage of photos on a memory stick that they had taken of us over the last few weeks. That was kind. One of the pictured was of me having an ice cream in Antarctica.
Gerry did the same last night but this time she burnt a DVD and presented it to us with some really great pics from the previous month.
During the day on the ship there are many things to do. One of the main activities that the majority of passengers attend are the various port lectures given by Frank or some other travel specialist 'expert'.
This was particularly so with the three 'experts' on board the ship for the Antarctica Experience.
Of course the daily Team Trivia Challenge is taken very seriously and fought hard for by the competing teams.
The ship's Spa people also run all kinds of 'well being' seminars and workshops on anything from skin care to weight loss. I suppose I should have given some thought to attending these as on both counts it might have helped my 'well being!! They also offer all kinds of Spa treatments.
For my 'well being' I had lovely Hannah from Sweden cut my hair in the Spa yesterday. She also gave me a little head message. Very nice too.
Other popular pursuits are bridge classes and dance classes freely available to all. I surprised myself by not attending any Tai Chi classes, something I did religiously on the world voyage we took some few years ago.
For the ladies there are knit and needlework get togethers held regularly and very well attented too.
Of course there is a host of other activities that can be taken up. In fact there is basically something going on all day that will keep you out of mischief.
Maria once more is back to her favorite pastime, on board, of reading.
Her current book is the biography of Rudolf Nureyev. It is the third hard back she has now taken out of the ship's excellent library, “each a big read and all biographies” she informs me.
I must say we had burn out over the last few days with so much exhilarating Antarctica sightseeing, so it is really nice to just relax today catching up and not much more than that.
It's back on the trail tomorrow assuming the weather allows the ship to use tenders to land us in the Falkland Islands where I'm looking forward to enjoying a pint.
Your commentary on the Anractic has been very exciting. I now have a desire to go there, where previously I thought it would be rather white and bland. I do hope you are successful in landing on Falkland Island as so many cruises seem to miss out due to rough seas. It may become more difficult in the future too, now that Argentina is not allowing British ships to sail there though Argentinian waters.
ReplyDelete