Day 58

Day 58 – Lerwick to Reykjavik – Thursday 12/7/12

Weather – Fine and Sunny 10C - 11C

Sunrise – 4.23am

Sunset – 11.45pm

Time difference - minus 9 hours ex Sydney

The ship's internet has been down for a couple of days, hence the delay in posting.

Still further north we sail, and still longer the daylight hours are. Tonight's sunset was 11.45pm, dunno what time it actually got dark as we have an inside cabin, and it was past our bedtime, but I am guessing between midnight and 1am based on what others tell us.

Throughout the day Sun Princess steered a north westerly course through the North Atlantic Ocean and Icelandic Basin. . The Icelandic Basin is termed “an abyssal plain” which is a smooth surface on the ocean bed formed over the millennia through the parting of the tectonic plates. The majority of the worlds ocean are covered with these flat unexplored areas.

A restful sea day today. The smooth North Atlantic was bathed in brilliant sunshine all day, but gee it was cold out on deck. There were some hardy souls out there, but most folk were indoors today. We slept in too late to make Dining Room breakfast, so it was up to the buffet for us.

We went to see what was happening with the Ceramics @ Sea, which Donna has been doing, but it seems to be getting quite disorganised. Word has it that Princess our withdrawing this activity from the cruises, and all the equipment has been transferred to this ship to run out. As a consequence, equipment and paints are not getting replaced, so participants are making do with less and less.

We bumped into some friends, which became a lovely impromptu morning tea, we seem to have a lot of them:) There has been a bit of talk across the ship about the allegedly 'woeful' comedian that was on last night, that was subject to a large walkout by passengers. I had wished I had seen him now so I could see what the talk is all about, and he is not on tonight program, so may be he has got the flick, who knows.

A CC lunch was on today in the Dining Room. There was only 24 in attendance today, which is a big drop on the 90 – 100 of previous lunches, but those who attended enjoyed it.

Donna did a movie in the arvo whilst I watched Tour de France, and attended the Champagne Art Auction. This was the first time I had ever seen the art auction in action on board, as I am not really that interested in art, but I was curious so I went along. No paintings were sold, but there was lots a empty champagne glasses around the room, yep it was free, and it was not Moet Chandon :)

After dinner, it was to the Vista Lounge for Country and Western night. We usually go, and I usually end of on the dance floor with Donna who is quite good at line dancing. I was good for the first set, but sat out the rest :)

A walk around the deck, at 11pm, with the sun still quite high in the sky, seems so bizarre. The intensity of the brightness from the sun is so much more than we are used to. I am sure there is some scientific reason for that, which I dont know:)

At 8am tomorrow the Reykjavik pilot will jump on just east of the fairway buoy number 7, and then we will set a south easterly heading into Reykjavik harbour to our berth “Skarfabakki”