Dolphin Racing

 

Wednesday 5th April Borealis

What a bump and grind of a night as Borealis ploughed through heavy seas. At times it seemed like the vessel had bumped into something as it jolted, plunged down and then shot up again. By about 3am the seas became calmer and the passage of the vessel somewhat smoother.

At breakfast things appeared to be normal though I could hear fellow passengers talking to each other about they had survived storms and heavy seas on earlier cruises/ Sick bags have appeared at every landing adjoining the lifts. I took down some milk for Albina's Corn Flakes waiting for her since yesterday. I was hoping to join the naryralist Dave Chilcott for a bit of whale watching. Unfortunately because of the strong winds all the open decks were closed. So were the pool and the jacuzzi. 

However, I did go to something advertised as a Senior Officers' Dolphin Racing Special. It was a hilarious escapade where the chief officers of the ship includin the Captain, the Chief Engineer, the Entertainment Manager (Sammie) and the Head Chef were racing wooden dolphins painted in their national colours across the stage. They were able to move forward ever so many steps in accordance with the throw of the dice by Tom, Sammie's assistant, who played the role of a very lively compere. The officers behaved like young children, boasting of thir coming victory, making faces at each other, and in the case of Sammie deliberately knocking over rival dolphins and blaming it on the "heavy seas". A spankable offence. We could all bet on the results as well. I did some spread betting, spent £8 and eventually won £6, so I was down by £2. Every now and again we would create a Mexican wave effect. All a harmless bit of fun.

As I could no longer go onto the outside Observation Deck on Deck 6 or the outside of Deck 9, I temporarily entered the Observation Lounge. To my surprise, despite the rolling of the ship, the Dance Class was continuing. There were around 15 pairs still shuffling across the heaving floor, swaying as much to the waves as the music. It looked quite comical, but I could only admire their persistence, and also that of their instructors.   

At lunchtime the Captain gave a weather report. He is expecting stronger winds tomorrow from north north east, which is from Siberia, and 5 metre high waves. That could be even choppier than last night. 

In the afternoon the sea calmed down a little, but this could have been because the vessel slowed down a little. In the meantime Ranald told me that Sharon had been seasick, which was they failed to turn up for the quiz last night. But then I had missed it too. I also had a breakthrough on finding my Thames Water Bill and paying it. Still cannot sort out paying my credit card though I have been trying sine March 23rd. The appropriate amount as been taken out of my current account but has not yet landed on my barclaycard statement.

I attended a piano concert played by two musicians on the one piano. A wonderful musical 3D version of Brahms, Ravel, Grieg and Rachmaninoff. After that I watched a table tennis match in which Tony was taking part. Then with Albina to lunch. For the first time onthis boat I lodged a complaint about a crispy pork meal served in the buffet restaurant. There was nothing crispy about this pork, Every single piece consisted of insufficiently prepared fat. The manager apologized and offered to replace the food.

I carried on working on the text of my lecture. At 10pm I went up for the General Quiz wondering who would be there having found Helen earlier with bloodshot eyes from a cold, while Sharon had been ill. To my pleasant surprise Sharon was there bright eyed and bushy tailed. Her seasickness pills made her feel better and she had been offered a special diet by the kitchen staff. The quiz went well. We got 14 ut of 15. However, so did 3 other teams. We got a tiebreak question. What is the capacity of the O2 arena.

We said 60,000, other teams said 80,000, 55,000, and 45,721. That last team had a sense of humour. It turned out that the answer was 20,000. We had failed to win again by a narrow margin.

I returned to the cabin. Albina asked about the results of the quiz. I told her of the fact that we were initially joint winners. Just for fun, I asked her what she thought was the capacity of the O2 Arena. "I don't know," she shrugged. "Would it be 20,000?"

Another time change tonight.