At Sea – First Classes

Today we were at sea. It’s been grim and grey outside, cold and overcast, with a slight swell, but the rocking has been mercifully minimal; I would put that down to the Magellan being a much larger ship than the Marco Polo, which is what we are more used to.

Being our first sea day also meant that I had to run my first workshop (The Building Blocks of Watercolour). My classes have been scheduled for mornings, in the Conference Room, starting at 10am, so we were up early, breakfasted and in the Conference Room by 9am, rearranging the tables and preparing for the arrival of my first lot of participants.

One of the problems of running classes on board a ship is that you never know exactly how many folks are going to turn up. The Magellan takes about 1200 passengers when it’s full, and the Conference Room, once it’s been set up ready for the painting class, seats 26 people. I was hoping that this would be enough. Although I’ve brought 40 sets of notes with me, the idle part of me was hoping that we might be able to keep it down to a single class.

Sadly, this was not to be. People were turning up for the classes as early 9:15; by 10am, the room was full to capacity, and folks were still arriving. Needless to say, Tracey (who not only helps me to set things up, but also acts as my door management officer) arranged with the entertainments team for me to run a second class at 11:30, to which we had about 21 people turn up.

It’s quite possible, of course, that those numbers will drop slightly as the cruise progresses. There are always lots of other, competing events going on around the ship, not least of which I was up against a photography lecture today (which, bearing in mind that this is a Northern Lights Tour, is always going to popular, with people wanting to know how best to photograph the Aurora should we be lucky enough to see it).

It was past 1pm by the time we’d finally cleared the room and was able to head for some lunch. We sat for a long while, after finishing lunch, chatting with the two comedians we have on board; Andy and Bruce, both of whom we’ve seen before, several times, on previous cruises.

One of the great things that I’ve come to appreciate about running classes in the morning is that it gives me the whole of the afternoon free. This afternoon, I snoozed a lot, though, quite shattered from my two classes, and didn’t do half the things I’d planned on doing.

Tonight it is Formal night, which I’m not a huge fan of, but we’ll no doubt dress up in our best bib and tucker and try to look posh. Tomorrow, we are due to arrive at our first Norwegian port, Olden, around about lunchtime. Because it is a late arrival, I’m scheduled to give my next two classes. We’ve also been asked to do some tour escorting for the Excursions team in the afternoon, so it’s going to be a busy day tomorrow…