We are sailing!

I still need to put out the blogs for the Farne Island trips with Mol and Ma, but I thought that today I'd start off with the cruise.

It's been a couple of years since we sailed from Southampton, as last year we flew out to Athens and started from Piraeus, and it was lovely making a traditional start.  (This of course is how Ma and I will be doing it in December, although for the first time ever we will be sailing in the dark; next year Sarah and I are doing a fly-cruise again, starting in Venice.)

It was right manky weather, so not a huge amount to see.  Set the tone for the rest of the crossing really!

Typical departure scene!  I think we'll need to add gloves to this shot in December.....

Looking back to Southampton - you can see from the wake how we skirt round the shallower area - Isle of Wight coming up on the other side of the ship

Portsmouth. Honest - the Spinaker is in there somewhere

The crossing actually got mankier as we went on - we did at least have a horizon on that first night!  Seas picked up - apparently they were "moderate", although to be honest you couldn't feel them on the QM2.  Just the occasional slight wonkiness when you didn't manage to do a straight line across a room.  We saw no birds, and until we were only a day out of Halifax no ships either.  Though we probably couldn't have seen them if they'd been there.

Typical view from the balcony!

Sadly, it was still like this the day we lost the crewman.  He had been in the water for an estimated 17 hours by the time we got back to search, and with the water temperature only 14 degrees I shouldn't think there was any chance of a good outcome.  But even though the passengers were all lining the deck rails and balconies I think we could have sailed within 30 yards and not have seen him.

As usual, despite having 5 uninterrupted (more or less) days at sea, we ran out of time rather than things to do.  We paid for access to the spa on 3 days - just turned up on the days we wanted to use it, pre booking not required.  For pool, steam room & sauna access actually compared very very favourably with spas I've used on shore.  Plus we had so much on board credit it was mostly free anyway!  And then there were lots of other nice places round the ship to sit.  Lectures to go to.  (We attended the ones by a lecturer on the development of Broadway (and to a lesser extent the West End) musicals, but frankly I drew the line at listening to US Ambassador Chase Untermeyer or Defense Secretary (I apologise for the spelling, but he is a Yank) Dr.Robert Gates - I did tell Sarah she was welcome to go without me, but strangely she didn't seem to interested either.)  And of course, the QM2 has the world's only floating Planetarium.  We thought there would be a different show every day there, but they only screened 2 different ones.  And we only saw one, as we stopped for the loos on the way to the other that we got tickets for (huge queues!) and missed the start so weren't allowed in!)

Art Gallery visit!  Mine - Golden Echinacea by Carl Scanes, delivery due in another couple of weeks....

Morning coffee in the Chart Room

Afternoon tea in the Queen's Room

Afternoon tea in the King's Court (general buffet area)

Sadly the weather wasn't really too awesome for sitting on our balcony or walking the decks.  There's a rather good observation deck too, but we never did get onto that.

Maintenance goes on regardless!

Closed due to wind

I shall move on to more exciting (well, more alcoholic) beverages tomorrow.  And evening outfits.  And last night before New York, when it was actually glorious!  (We'll come back to Halifax on a later blog.)