Tuesday, 6th January. 13 degrees

We woke up to a beautiful moon shining into our cabin – but it had been a very short night sleeping wise. The daily board meeting before we got up saw a vow never to have an Irish Coffees so late at night ever again – further learning every day……

For purposes beyond my understanding, tomorrow is the start of the ukulele playing – great stuff. So the day took on its usual approach – walking (one layer of clothing less in deference to the warming weather conditions), bridge (I am still not much wiser but have learnt a few things and our table sharers – now a Steve and a Steve – have decided to abandon and move to cribbage because our tutor is so confusing!) more walking, lunch…

Today’s ORCA lesson was about deep diving and how whales breathing systems work. Apparently they were sea creatures that moved to the land after many millions of years and then after many more millions years decided to move back to the sea again. This is apparently why they have lungs like ours which means they have to keep surfacing for air. Fascinating stuff which kept me mainly awake for the session and drove us up to the higher decks for an afternoon of whale watching. We saw nothing but one solitary kittiwake. We did have a chat with the ORCA chappie though who says we should see more birds and whale life as we get nearer to the Canaries,

I can only see half of him as I write – I hope you get all of him!

After dinner we stepped along to the Curzon Theatre to see a name from the past – Tommy Cannon. I have to say that it was more than a bit sad. I felt very uncomfortable as it was more of an ‘homage’ to his old pal Bobby Ball. Poor old Tommy has obviously never recovered from his loss. I think Keith and I were both pleased that it was not a long show and we have already decided not to attend the question and answer session with Mr. Cannon on offer tomorrow (in place of our ORCA session!)

… and so to bed.