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Published: February 17th 2011
Back again and now seem to have been at sea for ages after visiting Mauritius. The weather since Mauritius has been pretty awful considering we are in the Indian Ocean and in my head it wasn’t going to be like this – varying between grey, darker grey, bits of blue (but not very much), drizzle, pouring rain and blowing a gale!!! Hmmmph – tan will be fading.
When we arrived in Mauritius there were huge queues to get off the boat – beginning to see where the queue comes from in Cunard! Apparently it was down to Mauritian immigration people or lack of them that held everything up. But I have now decided to keep smiley face plastered on and not become flustered and grumpy like many of the passengers so spent time chatting gayley to all the grumps around us, a little to the consternation of Scott, as the couple who were the grumpiest decided to become our best friends and wanted to stick with us for the day. However managed to shake them off. Had planned to go to a beach but this was the day the weather changed and although it was very hot it was also showery. We took a walk through the main town of Port Louis which was interesting and very very busy with locals at the market. The people all seemed friendly, the buildings a little rickety and an amazing lack of cars. Am sure we didn’t see much of the island and I am told it has beautiful hotels but don’t think we would rush back here again.
Our dinner table has turned out to be really good fun and the man from Derby, Paul, is really entertaining and most amusing. The free wine goes a long way to making it an even more amusing occasion than maybe it would be otherwise. Also 6 out of the 8 of us tend to follow dinner by one of the many bars or night club so hangovers are now the norm!! Also the hour keeps going forward each night – we are now 9 hours ahead of UK time – therefore we are not seeing much of the mornings. This is not a bad thing as the lack of sunshine doesn’t entice you outside and although there are other activities on board we don’t feel they are really worth getting up for!!! However we have managed to do quite long stints in the gym in an effort to combat the effects of all the food and drink we are consuming!! Scott has been to a couple of lectures which between napping he has found them quite interesting.
We are due to arrive in Perth tomorrow which we were looking forward to immensely, especially as two people who we have met on the cruise, Bob and Leslie (Australian friends of Wendy and Phil who got off in Cape Town) had said they would go and get their car and then show us around the sights BUT now we are going to be late arriving and there won’t be time to do this. Apparently the ship had problems with an engine and therefore it slowed down for long enough to alter the arrival time by about 6 hours. Scott did get his calculator out and last night pointed out to the poor engineer who sat on our table that the ship only had to increase it’s speed by just over 2.5 kilometers an hour to make up for the lost time. This calculation was done by the man who after putting a sprinkler system in his garden realized there wasn’t enough water in the well – where was his calculator then I ask myself!! Anyway suffice it to say we are still going to be late in Perth!!! It must have been bad though because the Captain was missing from the Captain’s cocktails along with the Senior Engineer – not sure if it was fatigue at having worked through the night or an avoidance of disgruntled passengers and people with calculators.
Will attach some photos but not many as we haven’t been to many places (just one) since I last posted and although the drunken photos are quite amusing to us those reading might find them a bit boring!!
Hope everyone is well – and we really enjoy getting your news too remember – so keep in touch hey??
A little bit more because I couldn’t get good enough internet connection on board ship to download photos. We are just sailing past some islands just off Fremantle so when we land I will find a McDonald’s and send this on a much faster connection.(it’s sunny today, thank god!) I forgot to mention, and I know this will be of great interest to our former team mates, we won more golden tokens doing the quiz the other day. I might also mention we had teamed up with some Aussies who knew their stuff but I think we maybe contributed to 3 points they wouldn’t otherwise have known. It’s amazing what becomes important when cabin fever sets in! Also amusingly yesterday Scott and I played the quiz on our own where we did appallingly (six brains are obviously much more efficient than our two) and we actually scored a grand total of 5 but when Scott was asked by Leslie (her who is like a Victoria Woods character and plays every single quiz that ever happens and wins many of them) he lied and told her we had got 14 and then got worried in case I returned whilst he was chatting and inadvertently told her the actual score!!! He informed me that it had amused him to act out a lie – hmmmm …. What did I say about cabin fever??
Last night we said our goodbyes to Paul and Claire who get off in Perth to travel around Australia, then Bali and then to Hong Kong – getting there the same day as we arrive so we can maybe have some more mad times with them there. I then had a lesson from Frank (another table mate) on how to “shoot Craps” in the Casino and I came away with an 8 dollar gain, albeit a little confused as to what actually was going on. Enjoyable night.
Right going off to look what’s happening and lean over the edge and look at land – it’s been a while. Byeeee.
In backpackers hostel in Fremantle - lots of young brown people here! Feel a bit old and we can only have soft drinks because we aren't residents. Anyway here's to it
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Elaine
non-member comment
Hi Su and Scott Love getting new blogs, hope you are getting away from the bad weather. I have a great idea for Scott's next birthday.... the latest all singing all dancing Calculator!!!! Keep an eye on him Su sounds like he has cabin fever for sure, but don't worry we will help you get him back to normal when you get home. A few beers with the lads will soon sort him out hehe. Keep the blogs coming. Love to you both Elaine and Gerry xx