On every cruise we have been on and this is our fourth, the first full day is spent at sea. I am not sure why that is necessary and why we can’t just sail straight to the first port of call over night. I say this because the captain of the ship revealed last night that we were going to be going slowly, very slowly, to our first destination. So slowly in fact that he was only going to use one engine. This can only be because if he went any faster we wouldn’t get our day at sea. Odd.
So here we are with a full day to explore a ship that we pretty much covered in full last night. Fortunately we both are well prepared for this eventuality being seasoned cruisers and loaded up plenty of books on our Kindles and other distractions. Neither Helen nor I are the sorts to spend the day on the loungers in the sun, although plenty did. For us we went from one comfortable seating area to the cabin to the food area and back to a comfortable seating area pretty much on rotation.
Both Helen and I got excited as we sailed past Sicily somewhere we love and will be visiting in a couple of days time. I had hoped to be able to see Taormina, its amphitheater and Etna behind but by the time we were it should have been the island was shrouded in cloud and it was RAINING! That wasn’t on the plan!
Afternoon tea of scones and clotted cream all very civilised pity the cream melted on the hot plates!
Tomorrow we are allowed off!