Monday – Stormy Start

Driving down to Tilbury yesterday was relatively uneventful; the weather deteriorated slightly as we headed South, and signs on the motorway warned drivers of high winds being predicted for Monday. That’s okay, we figured, we’d be long gone before they arrived (yeah, right…)….

The Cruise Director gave us a warm welcome at the London City Cruise Terminal, sorting out our boarding passes and clearing the way for me to transfer my van-load of art stuff to the ship (three heavily-laden sack-barrow loads to be precise).

It was great to be back on board, though, and to see one or two familiar faces. There have been a few minor changes since last being on board, and one or two things are done differently, but it’s still, as far as I’m  concerned, the same old friendly Marco Polo.

This is its first proper cruise outing since being in dry-dock for a refurbishment for the last two months. Many of the staff are completely new, and everyone seemed relieved to be heading out to sea, after a couple of ‘Christmas Markets’ overnighters… rather high-spirited, and slightly raucous trips, by all accounts.

The minute we left the Thames Estuary, the fun began. A few hushed whispers on our arrival had hinted of bad weather to come; by the time we hit the English Channel, however, everyone was in no doubt that we would be in for a bit of a rough ride.

It was an early outing for the Sick-bag fairy, who creeps out and lines all the handrails in the corridors and on the stairs, with little blue bags for the purposes of preserving the newly-cleaned carpets from recycled dinner.

Two craft displays were planned for today, for the art and craft tutors (that’s myself, Peter-the-Wood, and Clare-the-Fascinators) to display our wares and drum up business for our forthcoming workshops. This morning’s went very well, but the afternoon display was abandoned; first, because the tables had been taken away, but then, because of the heavy seas and up-and-down nature of our passage, it was decided to drop it on safety grounds. I hung around anyway, and managed to gain a little extra interest in my classes, but am anticipating tomorrow’s first sessions to be a little on the manic side.

Sea-sickness has hit many, with the corridors being spookily quiet. Tracey has spent much of the day keeping as low a profile as possible in the cabin, and even the Cruise Director admitted to being caught out by it. I must confess; I rather like it when it’s this rough. If you time it right, you can fly up the stairs….

Everybody’s hoping the sea will calm down over the next twenty-four hours and normality be resumed. Tomorrow, I will be holding the first of my workshops (6 in total, for the Canaries Cruise), ‘The Building Blocks of Watercolour’… bring it on…