A day off at last

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What a delicious day today has been. After a great night's sleep, it was off to the gym for a good work out and an even better feeling of being virtuous! A healthy breakfast of V8 juice and kippers was then followed by a lecture on the subject of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Then we spent a couple of hours relaxing on the balcony which today was on the shady side of the ship. We then enjoyed a very healthy lunch which lasted for ages because we managed to be on a table of really lovely people with lots of interesting things to talk about. One of them is a lecturer on board this trip. He's a leading expert on canals so came in handy for talks on the Panama and today was delivering on a subject much closer to home: the Thames & Kennet Canal.

This afternoon we got close to thinking about going for a swim but never did get around to it. Instead, we lazed about on the balcony again. But boy was it worth it. We saw almost as much wildlife as you can see on some trips. The top prize went to the 3 Manta Rays we saw swim by really close to the ship. We also clocked up about 16 turtles and we reckon they were all a good healthy size coming in at about 3ft diameter shells. (I knew we'd seen lots of them when I spotted yet another one, called across to Richard to "look, there's another turtle". The reply was little more than "whatever" and not even a glance in its direction!) We also saw lots of flying fish as well as more Frigate Birds and Boobies. We also saw 2 grey things: not entirely confident about the identity of either but the smart money is on grey whales who are known to spend the winter in this part of the ocean. They were either whale fins we saw or 2 more turtles swimming perpendicular to the surface!!

Have photographed dinner tonight for Facebook. Richard had lemon sole with lobster, jumbo shrimps and a swan lipped mussel. I had a fillet steak. Both were utterly yum!

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