Saturday March 10th Reykavik
Aboard
Exhausted by the long tough day yesterday, and ‘bug’ that’s going around, I slept very late and ate and drank nothing until nightfall, I probably had an early night, as I don’t remember going to any entertainment!
Sunday March 11th: at Sea
Marginally warmer but quite rough. We left Iceland early in order to outrun a storm, but the Captain still warned us to keep off the open decks, However, there is still an area open to the sky where you can get fresh air surrounded by glass screens. This is where the smokers go. There is still a bar and buffet here, with barmen and waiters wrapped up in their cold weather gear.
Cold and wet on deck!
I did get to the Sunday Service: Luckily there was a retired parson among the passengers, so we celebrated Mothering Sunday at Sea. Following this was another lecture by our on-board Viking Expert, Sir James Hodge, who told us all about the Viking Colonies in Greenland and North America, fascinating stuff!
The evening’s show was a magician and Stand-up comedian, I fell asleep!
Later I went to the usual bar and met up with the poets.
Monday March 12th At sea
Here is an excerpt from my journal
Awoke in the early hours of the morning and got my wish, to see the lovely Faroe Islands again. Far out on the port side was a light on the horizon, blinking, and much smaller, but steady light. I turned the TV, using the channel that shows the ships position and progress, and sure enough, there we were passing the Southernmost point of the Faroes. Much later I woke again in daylight, and saw a trawler slipping slowly astern of us. At home I have a lovely view from my window, but I never see trawlers going past it.
A crewman has just asked me if I’m writing a book. So I told him about the blog, and showed him my WordPress address. So I’d better say what I may have omitted earlier that the crew of the Magellan are immensely helpful and friendly and highly skilled at making the passenger-experience a delight!
Note to self: swivelling, wheeled computer-chairs are very good on land, but in the North Atlantic in a fresh gale, NO! It’s like riding a loose cannon! I’ll have to move to a steady chair and put the laptop on my lap. Now I don’t much like Vikings, especially after what they did to the monastery on Lindisfarne, but I have to admire their courage and endurance in crossing these same seas in undecked longships with no weather protection at all, no fresh food, and definitely no pretty waitresses to bring them whiskey as they sat on the rowing benches. Nearly time for the ship’s Christian Fellowship meeting, so I will continue later in a fixed chair.
Later, this is how I pictured it! Me, the eccentric writer, sat in a corner of the ship’s “English Pub” (‘The Taverners’) with my laptop and a pint of ‘Spitfire’ bitter. The beer is on my left and wild blue Atlantic on my right. The beer is chilled, just a little bit, but full of flavour and not at all gassy, despite the absence of handpumps. How do they do it? Could it be that when the tap is turned, a bell rings down below: This alerts the shantyman to strike up a rollicking pumping shanty, stout-hearted seamen man the pumps, and up comes my beer to the sound of “Sally Brown from Boston City, way hey roll and go”. Well, jolly sailors, barmen, readers and writers all – Here’s to you. Cheers!
Now about being an eccentric writer, does this mean I’m automatically outside the writers’ circle?
The Christian Fellowship meeting was full of good fellowship, and now no-one thinks they’re the only Christian here. But so many people talking that I did not feel able to make a contribution. I asked God what to do about this, and an answer came to me. Like the Word to the minor prophets: “What do you see and hear, and think, Rychard? Open your laptop and set it down where you are never tonguetied, where you have time to consider each word, where your imagination has time to filter and edit. And, who knows, someone out there may be amused by what you write.” “PS, don’t forget to put some pictures in”.
And here the are: Various views of the deck, in the cold and wet, note that there’s no-one
actually on the decks. The notice on the door in the bottom left picture says that the door is out of use, owing to the weather
That afternoon there was a lecture by the ship’s photographer, on how HIS Northern Lights pictures were so much better than ours!
The Evening Entertainment was a great nostalgiafest (but they don’t do the old-time nostalgia like I used to know) “Shake the Sixties” How the dancers coped with the heaving decks in ther dance routines, was amazing!
A few more empty wet deck pictures are available HERE
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