Category: Canaries

This is just a short post to say that we arrived in Southampton safely, and without incident, at around 5am this morning. A fleet of coaches had been drafted-in to transfer 800 passengers from Southampton to Bristol; an operation that was as smooth as it could possibly be under the circumstances. We were off the ship and on the coach...

Today was the final leg of our journey home. It was also the day of our art exhibition. We’d been advised the night before that we should make sure everything was stashed away as safely as possible to avoid damage to personal belongings. Sure enough, the ship rocked and rolled violently all night as the Captain fought to try and avoid the...

Today, I ran my last two lessons of the cruise (‘Puddles’). Considering the deterioration in sea conditions, I was pleasantly surprised by the turnout. Everyone seemed to enjoy the exercise, and much hilarity ensued when it came to painting in the two simple figures at the end; a very upbeat session, and a good one to finish off with. At...

Today, we’ve been at sea again. There’s been a deep swell for most of the day, making the going a little rough at times, but nothing we can’t handle. I ran my penultimate classes this afternoon (Seaspray and Sandpaper), which were well attended, and the pile of paintings for our exhibition on Monday is growing. Everybody’s fingers and toes are...

  …well, the New Year Fireworks didn’t disappoint! At around 11:15pm, several ships attempted to create a sort of ship’s funnel symphony, which sort of worked, but needs practice (maybe next year), and at midnight, the entire island of Madeira lit up to a magnificent pyrotechnic spectacle, maintaining, in my mind at least, its position as still one of the...