SEA DAY – FIRST CLASS
Today, we are at sea, heading in a Westerly direction, down the length of the English Channel, towards the Bay of Biscay.
It’s a bit rough, and the open decks have been closed off due to the high winds and rolling swell. Having said that, I’m pretty sure it would seem much rougher if we were on the Marco Polo. The Columbus is a much larger ship, so, like the Magellan, rough weather seems to be less of an issue… time will tell.
After a hectic beakfast in a busy bistro, we took a long walk around the ship before settling down in the Dome for the remainder of the morning.
This afternoon, I held my first painting class.
The Columbus has a dedicated room for arts and crafts – The Crafter’s Studio. It’s large, comfortable, and has good, natural light. It’s positioned right at the front of the ship on deck 11, and takes a little finding. Unlike many of the spaces I’ve worked in on other ships, this room has no passing traffic, so anyone wishing to take part have to actively make an effort to find it.
Tracey and I turned up at around 1pm, after lunch, to give ourselves plenty of setting-up time in readiness for the advertised start of 2:30pm. With the room being new to us, it can take a while to work out how best to arrange it. Fortunately, there wasn’t a lot of arranging to do; there are plenty of tables and extra seating-only spaces to accommodate a fair number of people, and with the seas being a little on the rough side, we figured there probably wouldn’t be much of a turnout anyway. How wrong we were…
By 2pm, we were fully set up and ready, and had only seen one lady who had popped in to confirm where the room was. As time went on, and we sat there waiting, it seemed like our thoughts of it being a quiet session might come to fruition, and that the forty places we’d laid out might not all be needed.
And then people started turning up… and they just kept coming. By 2:20pm, the room was full… and still folks came streaming through the door.
All credit to Tracey here for her tireless work in accommodating people. Even though we’d exhausted our supplies of boards and brushes, we managed to squeeze in 41 painters and about seven non-painting spectators.
The only thing about the room that we’re not mad about is the fact that it is quite warm, particularly when it’s full of passengers. We couldn’t find any thermostat or controls to alter the temperature of the room ourselves, but as we were packing away, I managed to catch a member of the crew who promised to leave a message for the Air Conditionining Operative to reduce the temperature in the room for future classes.
The class went well, and everyone seemed happy wth it, which is what it’s all about… happy punters…
All I wanted to do when we’d finally packed everything away was to drink tea and sleep.
With the weather rough as it is (not really that rough, but hey…), they’ve cancelled this evenings showtime and formal night, and replaced it wth a movie, so that means another evening in the cabin binge-watching ‘Stargate SG-1’.
