Wednesday evening was our last formal night of the four on board and dinner was Marco Pierre White menu day, so I guessed it might be an interesting time. I started off with an amuse-bouche of mainly mango, followed by a cold starter of various fishy items including smoked salmon. Then came bouillabaisse and my main course was a cod fillet with ice cream to round it all off. For dessert, there was a blueberry soufflé on offer, but it came with ice cream and other things as well and it would have been a dish too far.
The moon was up and shining beautifully across a glistening sea and it was so lovely to walk out on deck with a warm breeze blowing across the deck.
Today is a sea day. It also marks a year since Joe Biden took office and when Graeme put another year on the clock. We had a leisurely get up and breakfast up in the cafeteria.
So, yes, today is a sea day but one that we really don’t need. By sea from Grenada is 153 statute miles. The captain has 37.5 hours between leaving Grenada and arriving in Barbados to cover that, so we are bombing along at a very stately speed. If the itinerary had been better arranged, we could have had an extra port stop. We needed a sea day to get to Grand Turk and back as the Turks & Caicos Islands are so detached from the main Caribbean group of islands, but not this one.
We probably did need the other stand alone sea day, the one between St Vincent and St Kitts as that was a run of 318 statute miles and, with only 13.5 hours to accomplish it, the ship would have needed to travel at nearly 24 mph. The Azura’s maximum speed is 24 knots or 28mph, but that would probably have used more fuel and therefore produce more pollution.
After dinner we went to the Malabar to see Lana, the ship's female vocalist
All that said, when you look at a map of the Caribbean islands you
can’t help but think that it must be possible to create a ‘there and back’ itinerary
which needs no sea days by island hopping from alternate islands up and back.
I meant to say. The Dumont D’Urville, the ship which was docked next
to us yesterday is said to be a luxury expedition ship. Well, all I could think
was that it was nowhere near anywhere you might describe as an expedition area,
but more likely on some sort of jolly or other.
Its maximum speed is 15 knots or 17mph, whereas the Azura can do 24 knots
or 28 mph.
Once again today we’ve noticed that the Jacuzzi/spa pools were closed off. No reason is given except that they are supposedly undergoing maintenance which is clearly not the case.
We had a spell of pre-packing to take some of the pressure of packing away from tomorrow and then we had a spell sitting out on the back deck in one of our favourite spots.
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