Alive on the Ocean Wave

Predictably, the alarm for Pilates went off an hour too early, at about 6.45am! S stumbled out of bed, then stumbled across the room.

“Argle”, she said. I was still trying not to wake up, but the crashing sounds continued as S seemed to be playing a game of human pinball around the cabin.

“Grrgh” came further comment.

Then, “oooggh – the ship is moving”

“I jolly well hope it is,” I answered from under the duvet, “It’s nearly 900 miles to Sri Lanka! How else will we get there?”

“Nrrgghh” came the reply, as a gentle roll to starboard sent her lurching out onto our veranda. Less than a minute later, the reciprocal roll to port brought her whizzing back into the cabin, where she sat down heavily on the bed.

“I don’t think I like this”, she muttered.

“Nonsense’, I said, sympathetically, “You’ll be fine just as soon as you’ve had a nice big greasy breakfast”.

To be fair, the movement on the boat was no more than soporific and we both got used to it very quickly. Admittedly, S (who as you all know, has some balance challenges anyway) found sea-going Pilates ‘interesting’ and walking around the promenade deck covered more distance than you might have expected, but all was well.

An added distraction was our first glimpse of flying fish, alongside the boat. These are bizarre creatures, quite small and very fast moving, but once you get the hang of spotting them, quite intriguing to watch. I thought that they mig have been bigger.
“What did you expect” said S, ‘Low flying cod??”

We tried to take photos but apart from their speed of movement, when you take anything with glass in it outside of the air conditioned cabin, it immediately steams up in the heat and humidity and is unusable for about ten minutes!

After Pilates and breakfast, S had booked us into ‘Beginners Bridge’, partly to annoy Rachael who before we left, swore she’d disown us if we did something so ‘old’! We got paired up with a couple of guys from San Francisco, who were quite amusing. The class was being led by not-entirely slender ex Attorney from somewhere in corporate America, who had exactly that slightly crotchety, pompous style about him. The class was fine but little did we know of the potential that had been set down for the next morning!

The rest of the day was spent sunbathing and talking occasionally to some of our fellow passengers- the majority of whom are Aussies, Canadians and Brits, with a smattering of other Europeans and a few East Asians. Not all conformed to national stereotypes – but quite a lot did. The Canadians, for example, are extremely courteous and circumspect in any conversation, skirting very carefully around any ‘risky’ issues until they know where you stand , especially regarding Trump!

The Americans? Not so much… as per a conversation the previous day with an elderly couple from Washington State, who had a farm near Mount St Helens;

“So, You guys are Aussies, right?”

“No, actually, we’re from the UK”

“Ukraine, you say – gee, we keep hearing about that on the news”

“NO, not Ukraine, the UK!”

“Yeah, we know all about Ukraine – that’s where you have this brixit thing, right?”

“NO… well, yes, but not Ukraine, UK!”

“So let me figure this out – will Harry be king of the Ukraine if you leave this brixit?”

“Um – well no, it will still be the Queen, but..”

“But she’s the Queen of England, right? So how does that fit with the Ukraine?”

“Well not the Ukraine – but England is part of the UK, along with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland”

“So if brixit, whatever that is, happens, then Scotland and England aren’t part of the Ukraine anymore? Is that really going to happen? And what happened to Charles? This is all so confusing”

“Yes, it is a bit. Anyway, please excuse us, we’re off for a swim; Please do have a nice day! ”

Later that night, I finally got dragged back to the cabaret by S, as an English comedian was on. I dreaded this but in fact, he wasn’t too bad at all. In fact, given that he had an audience of many Aussies and North Americans (the other non-native english speakers never stood a chance!), and that politics, religion and anything more than lightly risqué was definitely on the ‘forbidden’ list, he really did quite well. Apart from a quip about why on earth would you advertise the ship’s name on the life jackets, his best line of the night spoke more truth than anyone wanted to admit;

“I went to the on-board disco last night, as they said it was seventies night. Christ, they weren’t joking either!”