Thursday 7th April - Sea day

So, another sea day. Today I sat in on lectures from Peter Mawby and Louise Bonner. Peter and I spent a little time on deck watching the flying fish. We were joined by a Brown Booby (bird) which hitched a lift, sitting on the antennae at the very front of the ship.

Peter had his last class, and had the passengers painting a Minoan temple, and tonight is formal night, so we got all poshed up to eat in the Veranda Restaurant. Since we might as well, we decided to sit in on the Classical Night in the Darwin lounge, which was an excellent decision. Two violinists and a pianist gave us a brilliant little show, very entertaining. I have to admit to being amazed at how well they play together. Quite awesome.

Tomorrow we are at Roatan, Honduras. We don't have any tours, so we will probably go looking for a beach and see if we can manage a swim without getting so sunburnt. It should be good.

Wednesday 6th April - Puerto Limon, Costa Rica

When we act as escorts - the last task of a tour is to check the bus after all the passengers have left, just to make sure no-one has left anything behind. So, after the tour at Gatun Lake the other day, I checked the bus, and then told the driver that it was fine - and he drove off.........The thing was, I left my hat on it!

I explained this to Peter when we got back to the cabin, and, believe it or not, he'd checked his bus at the end of the tour, told the driver it was fine, and once it had disappeared into the sunset, found out he'd left his reading glasses on it.

So we have a little bit of a shopping list of replacement items - so today, we took a wander into town to replace them. Puerto Limon has very much of a Caribbean feel about it, busy and overflowing.

We also popped into the little park right outside the port. Now this was somewhere I really liked, there were various sculptures, loads of benches, an almost colonial bandstand in the centre, and Sloths.

There were two apparently, a male and a female who were completely oblivious to us.

The ship set sail in the afternoon, Peter had a class which I helped with and afterwards we went out on the top deck for a bit of wind sweeping (getting very windswept). To our delight, we were accompanied by Brown Boobys, riding the breeze at the side of the ship, almost level with us. They were after the flying fish scared out of the water by the enormous shape of the Voyagaer, and the birds constantly dived down to chase and catch the little winged fish flitting atop the waves.

And then to finish the day, we watched the Voyagers version of Call my Bluff. The Captain, the Hotel Manager, and the Purser provided the definitions for the words, and the audience chose who they thought was providing the truthful answer. Most of the time the audience got it wrong, but what an entertaining night. One of the highlights as far as I'm concerned. I will always have a picture in my mind of James, the Entertainment Manager wearing a wig and head banging to Smoke on the Water. An excellent night.

Tomorrow is a sea day - so a lazy morning and a class for Peter in the afternoon. Luuuurrrrrrrvly

Tuesday 5th April - Let out - Puerto Limon, Costa Rica

Well, as you can imagine, today has been quite boring. Room service however, has been quite amazing. We asked for tea and boiling water, and got a flask jug of each. We asked for tea, and boiling water for herbal tea, and cold water, and we got a flask jug of tea, a flask jug of boiling water, a flask jug of herbal tea, two bottles of water and a bucket of ice. How good is that!

It couldn't make up for the menu for people recovering from a tummy upset. Boiled fish! I mean............ boiled fish! It was pretty awful. Peter tucked into Lasagne, I ate my boiled potatoes, vegetables, breadsticks and (some of) my boiled fish.

We were let out in the evening, and since the ship was now docked in Puerto Limon, we went for a quick walk ashore. It was dark, hot and muggy, and naturally all the shops were closed, but it was a much needed stretch of the legs. We did however come across a pharmacy - and since I have been deaf in one ear since we went swimming in Manta, we thought it was a good place to get some ear drops.

The place confused us at first but it turns out you speak to one of the assistants to explain what you need. Good job they spoke English eh? The assistant gives you a scrap of paper with the price on which you take that the cashier and pay, and then the assistant will give you whatever it is you've paid for. Can I just say that eardrops in Costa Rica are very expensive!

The ship stays here overnight. We are not on tour in the morning - so we'll have a lie in and a wander into town again. There's a park here, and we've been told there are sloths living there, but we'll wait until day light to take a look. At night it was pretty creepy, with odd men hanging around (probably homeless) making us feel uneasy.