Thursday 13 January (cont.)

So this is our sea day en route to Grand Turk in the Turks & Caicos Islands.

We have never been here before, so we don't know what awaits us, but a look at the map made me aware that, although these islands stretch far and wide along the edge of the Atlantic, Grand Turk itself, the administrative capital of the islands, is on a fairly small island separate from the string of others.

Now, these islands are one of the 14 or so British Overseas Territories around the world and a well-known tax haven, so another exciting prospect about visiting them is that we may bump into one or more MPs who are 'working from home'. Whether or not I'll have time to open my offshore bank account while we're here is another thing.

Anyway, back to our sea day.  We had a fairly relaxing day. One fun thing about the fact that there was slight motion of the ship was that the pools that are open suddenly had wave machines without there being any machinery to power them!

I tidied my things up so that I might know where everything is while Elizabeth went to see today's film in the ship's cinema which was "Dear Evan Hanson" which she gave 8 out of 10.

After the film we went out to the back of the ship for our now daily refreshment. We were chatting with the waiter when he suddenly stood up straight, looked over towards the bar and said he would have to look busy as there was the captain.  And off he went to look busy!

As the captain passed us, he gave us a cheery 'hello' so I stopped him for a chat. We wanted to know where in Derbyshire he came from and he told us it was from the deep south, in a small village near East Midlands Airport.  I think he may have said it was Ticknall.

We asked him how long he was on board for and he said until the end of March, so they don’t seem to do these 9-months tours of duty that the Chinese and Filipino slaves on board do. We felt this wasn’t perhaps the time for a moan about how lacking this was as a cruise compared to what we’ve been used to, but he and we did touch upon it. He said that people needed to bear in mind that most of the staff on board hadn’t worked for two years as the situation has been so dire.

At dinner we had a couple on a nearby table for two who seemed to have done the Caribbean a number of times. They were quite bemused as to why this cruise includes Grand Turk as it means one sea day to get there from the main Caribbean islands and another sea day back.

They told us that they had been there 3 times. Once it was so rough that they couldn't dock and, on the other two occasions, it had chucked it down all day. They added that there was a most beautiful beach and a shopping area, but not much else. The man told us that the shopping area had been built by Carnival Cruise Lines (of which P&O are a subsidiary company) and that perhaps one reason to be here was so that we would spend money in their shops. Ummm, we're not looking to buy anything, really.

So we will see what awaits us.

They were the second couple who had been on the Gatwick flight which had been delayed by 3.5 hours. They told us it was because they suspected that one or more passengers had Lithium-ion batteries in their suitcases. Now, airlines are neurotic about this as they can spontaneously combust, especially if charging or left in a charger.

Everyone was on board and they asked if anyone had any of these batteries in their luggage. Nobody put their hand up. Then they asked if anyone had an electric toothbrush in their luggage and almost everyone put their hands up! They were asked to put their hands down again

So they were all taken off the plane, as was their luggage and passengers had to identify their luggage on the tarmac. After that he didn't elaborate as to exactly what happened.

We saw the two main female singers mid-performances, one being the Aussie again who wasn't on quite such good form as she had been the night before with a musicals theme this time (although the ship's on-board musicals expert (Elizabeth) said she knew none of the songs).

The other woman was a down to earth Brit who presented a mix of comedy and song and who used a slide show for part of her comedy bit. She was good, so we may have to seek her out again. The film of the day was "No Time To Die", but as it had a 10pm start we thought that might be asking too much of us and we retreated to our cabin.