In the middle of nowhere

The Big Band Ball

Art anyone?

Captain's lobster

Cloud cap on Tristan

One of these could be fun

Dinner in The Lotus

The Settlement

Halfway across

Africa on the horizon

How to time your tea

Inaccessible Island

Land Ahoy!

List to Starboard

Can't be bothered

Royal Mail Steamer

Trees to Leeward

Show programme

RMS 'St Helena'

Ship to shore

Hardly Tesco Direct

Nothing on it

Since leaving Montevideo we have plodded steadily across the South Atlantic and made a Northerly diversion of about 100 miles from the Great Circle course to pass close by Tristan da Cunha and Inaccessible Island – the most isolated inhabited islands on Earth - (for something to do!). About the only thing of interest in the meantime has been spotting albatross and one or two smaller, unidentified birds thousands of miles from the nearest land. How do they do it and sleep?

The Islands were very interesting – Tristan was evacuated in 1961 due an eruption of its volcano and is now serviced twice a year by RMS St Helena, the only other Mail ship in existence apart from the QM2. The St Helena was anchored off the Settlement of Edinburgh, trying to ferry supplies ashore with one of her tenders, which looked very dodgy indeed in something of a swell. We were met by the Fishery Protection RIB ‘Wave Rider’ and by a Scottish Environmental Research RIB as we slowed right down, exchanging gifts with them apparently. The Captain will have had fresh lobster last night! We tried out ‘The Lotus’ (part of the awful Deck 7) and for $10 each had a really good Thai/Chinese meal – we can’t understand why Cunard charge just $10 – the administration must cost more than that! They had a really great timer for brewing the tea.

Yesterday’s Noon position put us 1442 miles from Cape Town and 2200 miles from Montevideo, having sailed 9060 miles from New York. We are expected into Cape Town about Noon on Friday. Today the Captain announced that we are not going to pass any other islands – he hoped!

Yesterday we discovered that the ship has blocked access to Skype through the satellite Internet connection due to lack of bandwidth, which is a shame having successfully made connections earlier in the trip – we’ll have to try from shoreside in Cape Town, but we can at least keep in touch by text and email.

All well on the ship; we are finding the optimum routes from A to B now, something of a feat with the complicated and irrational deck layouts! We have also established the function of the curved tubular structures you might have seen on some of our photos above the stacks of liferafts – they are there to deflect the rafts off the deck and clear of the ship’s superstructure in the event of a sinking! The rafts are released automatically if unattended and might otherwise snag the upper decks as the ship sinks! These French shipbuilders think of everything.

One of the nice things about being a World Cruise guest is our own lounge, complete with UK newspapers, but we are just a little concerned about the situation in Egypt –will they close the Suez Canal? Plenty of time to sort that one out we hope.

We are due to make a ‘delivery’ tonight under the light of the Southern Cross, all being well.