Day at sea, medical emergency and an emergency diversion.

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Today is our first sea day and, boo, we lost Barbara already. It had been fairly calm waters leaving southampton but now that we are heading toward the Baltics, it is getting a little more on the choppy. Dave and I burst into Gary and Barb's room this morning and there she was looking like a little casper the ghost.

Despite our attempts to convince her to let us take her to the docs for an injection, she would not get up and so we have now left her and come down to crooners for the first bloody mary of the day. Extra Spicy!!

Dave and I have also already enjoyed some time in the thermal spa, a suite perk, it was really nice and relaxing....well it was up until the point that an obnoxiously loud couple on the heated beds next to ours started yelling at each other in Manderin and totally wrecked the zen. I gave them a withering look and put my robe over my head which helped deaden the noise somewhat.

i popped into the jewellers, Effy's, today and was immediatly drawn to the Alexandrite. it is the rarest gemstone in the world and we don't often see it on board. I remember the first time i ever saw Alexandite was on a Princess cruise and it was a genuine Russian one. You just dont get those nowadays and the stones now are mostly from Brazil. Still beautiful and still with the incredible Emerald green to ruby red colour change depending on the light source. The staff showed us the colour change of one particular stone and it really was stunning. So was the price though! I said to dave "i really like that one" he said it was fine to like it but no way was i having it lol. it was way toooooooooo expensive... like ridiculous.

Dave has just popped up to get my glasses so that I can continue to write this without squinting.....he seems to think mum is feeling a bit better now because she is going on about her next holiday being a caravan in Wales. we think shes joking!

if they would only fly, we could ensure calmer waters for future cruises. :-)

ok a few hours have passed and.......we have a medical emergency on board. suprise suprise! We noticed that the ship had slowed a little and that the seas appeared a bit calmer. Contrary to Barbara's belief that we have diverted to the carribean.....we have in fact diverted to a small port off the coast of Denmark to allow for a transfer of the poorly patient. It won't affect our stop tomorrow in Copenhagen but, more importantly, it means that they can get the chap or chapess to hospital nice and fast. It would not be a cruise if there was not a bit of excitement. The demographics on this cruise was always going to lead to a chance for medical issues....everyone is really, really old. out of near on 3000 people, there are 3 kids. I have only seen one!


we are all now sitting at crooners bar enjoying cocktails before dinner. formal night tonight and, wooooooohoooooo, barbara has made it and joined us. she looks and feels a lot better. on the coast line, out of the window, is yet another huge windfarm...there seem to be tons of them out here. we can also now see land which is quite exciting. i like typing the blog as things happen! i remember a lot more. :-D
ooooh exciting! a small coastguard ship has just pulled alongside us and they are about to try the transfer of person to boat. we thought we were actually going into a port but no....they are going to chuck the poorly person into another boat from our ship. considering how choppy it is and how tiny that other boat is....i cannot watch this transfer!....
30 mins later.... nope, not gonna happen. The little coastguard ship was more like a toy fishing boat along side the sapphire princess. there was no way they could safely transfer the person onto that vessel and so it is now time for plan B. The captain has just annoucned that they will now have to commence a helicopter rescue and, due to the nature of the winch operation, several passengers will need to be evacuated from their cabins on deck 14 for the duration of the excercise.

We are currently eating our dinner in the dining room and waiting for the helicopter operation to commence....

phew...... an hour later and the passenger is gone and on their way to hospital. Hopefully they wiill be okay...we don't know though. Barbara, in the meantime, managed to eat two lobster theromostat or whatever its called and an entire cheesecake AND she had a starter. we think she is feeling better. I tried a bit of the lobster....gross, nasty and contrary to what i had been assured, it DOES taste like fish. eeeeugh.
i had the beef medalions which were really good.

The rest of the evening was spent at crooners and then watching the second half of the football on tv. booooooo!!! we were obviously cheering for Leciester :D great goal by Kompany though and i cannot dislike manchester city...not since they nicked the title from under uniteds nose a few seasons back lol. oh on the way to the room from crooners, a man in an electric wheelchair tried to mow dave over.....it was a close call. Those things relaly shift!

oh i forgot this.....Dave and i were on the balcony earlier and water from the sea , 9 decks below, sprayed up and over us. Refreshing! The seas have calmed down a lot now and barbara should be fine. Tomorrow we dock in Copenhagan and we are looking forward to wandering around. tara for now. xx

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