Friday – Rockin’ and Rollin’ in The Bay

We’re a rocking and Rollin’… nothing too severe, but enough to catch a few people unawares, I think. In his address yesterday, the Captain forcast swells of 4 to 5 metres, which is about the same as we had on the outward journey across the Bay of Biscay. So; not excessive, but when you’ve got used to weeks of relative calm, it can come as a little bit of a shock to the system. It did, albeit briefly, spark memories of 12 months ago, when mountainous, force-12, waves were hitting deck 8, and all hell broke loose. One of the questions, at the Captain’s Q&A yesterday afternoon, was; with the Marco Polo celebrating its 50th annniversary this year, how many more years (in the Captain’s opinion) did he think that the ship still had in it. His reply was that, in his opinion, and according to the stringent tests and mainenance that it undergoes every year, it remains a very robust ship, built and strengthened using methods that aren’t used in the more modern ships of today. He could see no reason why it shouldn’t last another 50 years (Amen to that!….).

Today, I ran my penultimate classes. ‘The Art of Composition’ concentrated on the essential ingredients of good painting design, along with those things that should be avoided; it seemed to go down well, with good results. The swell has been quite strong today, and brushes have been rolling on to the floor, but as long as it doesn’t get any stronger, we should be okay.

This evening was the first of two ‘Passenger’s Choice’ shows. It seems there’s been a tie, so tonight we saw ‘From Russia With Love’ again, and on Sunday, the joint winner (whatever that is) will also be performed again – they’ll not be announcing what it is until minutes before the show starts.

Tonight, the clocks go forward one more hour for the last time, putting us back in synch with UK time, so it’s an early night for me, and another episode of The Sopranos…