Yet another sea-day; our guests find them relaxing and enjoyable and, for those of you who have already cruised with us, you know there’s no need to worry about being bored, there are a tremendous amount of activities and one is spoiled for choice. I too enjoy them, importantly, it’s an opportunity for a good night’s sleep, no early morning call, (those start again later).

After all our ‘weaving’ of yesterday, an effort to keep the satellite lock for as long as possible, we lost IS701 in the evening, thus entering the gap between IS701, the Caribbean and IS18SH. This morning however, we awoke to find that we were ‘locked’ on to the IS18 and some normality has resumed, though we lose signal every now and then, it is sporadic as I type. (In the scan below, our ‘void’ between satellites is circled).  It’s amazing how we’ve become used to modern communications; 3 days ago I was on Face Time with Sam and Liz, watching Violet cook something for me in her new (Christmas) cooker and Emily and Olly talking and waving to me.  When I went to sea, one considered oneself fortunate to receive a letter every few weeks (and that depended on whether the ship’s agent could be bothered to bring them down to the ship).

I promised to write about my Dance prowess and in particular, the ‘Aida Grunsworthy’ Dance Formation team, so here goes…….

After my formal dance lessons at Navigation College (and the challenges presented by learning while dancing with fellow, (male) cadets, I then moved on……

The Shipping company that I was indentured to, the British & Commonwealth Shipping company, had, at that time, some 84 vessels, a handful of which were Passenger Liners, vessels which plied a set route, to a set schedule; this was the Union Castle Steamship company. They had been plying from U.K. to South and East Africa for 100’s of years. I served on many of them, (happy days they were too), however I will refer to one of them, the “Windsor Castle”. Fortunately, I still have a photo, so you don’t need your imagination; sadly, she went the way of many; she was sold to Greek shipping interests and eventually, went to a scrap yard in India and, more than likely,you are driving part of her, or shaving with part of her…….

She was small by today’s standards, 37, 640 gross tonnes, nevertheless a beautiful ship. I served on her as a 2^nd officer and in those days, it was mandatory for officers to engage in all social activities.

One of these was the AG Dance formation team. Purely voluntary, (not), it involved 12 (male) officers; here comes the ‘unfortunate’ part, 6 were dressed as men, 6 were dressed in female garb, you may by now surmise that I was in the latter group; (rank had its privileges and the more senior ones had 1^st choice). Our ‘dress’ was found in the ‘rag bag’, clothing and rags that were brought on board for the purpose of cleaning Engine Room spaces. Our ‘female’ ‘appendages’ were balloons, (one had enormous difficulty keeping a constant pressure, they would, more often than not, deflate unevenly, or, even worse explode). 😯 

We had on board, professional dance instructors and we rehearsed endlessly with them; we were ‘step perfect’, the fun was merely in the fact that it was (i) 12 males and (ii) without exception, something would go awry with the costume. Waltz, Rumba, Paso Doble…we did the lot. Somewhere, no doubt, there still exist embarrassing photos which could be used to blackmail me……. I’ve divulged too much already, however you may well understand why my dance technique is what it is…….

The Black and Silver ball and some photos I promised you

Karen and I, ready to dance the light fantastic…

 I will have to put other photos on the blog later; I was unable to carry a camera with me and those who did, need time to send some to me.