Category: Black Watch

Today was our first sea-day after a marathon of port stops, which meant a bit of a lie-in… very welcome.   I spent most of the morning painting in the cabin, but we’d also both been asked to attend a pre-lunch cocktail party due to start at 11:15am. It was a special party organised for what Fred Olsen call their...

There was always a good chance, after the previous non-stop two days in Istanbul, that Canakkale would turn out to be a bit of an anti-climax. We arrived early, for starters – I rather get the feeling that most people would have appreciated a bit of a lie-in, and a sea-day wouldn’t have gone amiss at this point – it...

I keep thinking of things about Istanbul that I wanted to mention but didn’t remember them when writing the blog…   Firstly, there was the bongs…   Several cafes we passed, on the way up to the mosque, had massive bongs on the tables, and we saw several people using them in the restaurants on the bridge… all perfectly normal...

We knew today was going to be a long day. There were lots of things we wanted to see, but knew there was no way we were going to be able to see everything. It’s great having an overnighter on a cruise like this – mostly because it gives you the chance to see the place at night, but also...

Because we weren’t due to arrive in Istanbul until midday, I took the opportunity to do some painting in the cabin in the morning. Satisfied with what I’d produced, I joined Tracey on deck at about 11:30, when we picked up the Pilot to take us into port. We were lucky; the Black Watch had bagged a good parking spot,...