Back into the Wild Blue Yonder

Last night, at around 11.30pm, we finally left Santander.

The captain warned us that the going would be rocky, and boy, he wasn’t kidding…

Throughout the long night we bounced and crashed our way through the waves, heading in a Westerly direction. At one point (the wee hours), we put on the cabin TV to check the live navigation chart, to see that we’d barely made any headway at all, and despite all four engines running flat out was only running at a puny 9 knots.

By morning, we’d covered about half the distance to the top left-hand corner of Spain, where – when we get there – will hang a left, to travel South, along the coast of Portugal.

As I write this, I’ve just completed the second of todays painting classes, and the ship is running at around 14 knots. The little icon that tells us where we are is just about making the turn. Once again, the captain informed us earlier that things would deteriorate around this time, so we’re not out of the woods yet by any means. As we turn to point in a southerly direction, the prevailing winds will be coming from our starboard side, adding a rolling motion to our currently pitching. Needless to say, the open decks are closed again today, along with the Britannia Lounge and the Grill, so once again, we’ll be eating dinner in our cabin.

It’s going to be another long night…