Saturday May 11, 2024 – At Sea Between Southampton and Funchal, Madeira
The first full day at sea after the start of the second segment of our journey. This one goes down the Iberian coast and around Madeira and the Spanish Canary Islands off the coast of North Africa – specifically, 60 miles from the border between Morocco and Western Sahara.
The first Lecture was the Port Presenter talking about Lanzarote and Gran Canaria. Unfortunately, she has that type of a voice that makes it a bit difficult to deal with, but she tries hard to get her point across. Thus, there were no more than a handful of people in the audience, which is always a bit distressing for the speaker.
The second speaker – Keith Muras – gave the first of his series on his life as a British Diplomat in the Soviet Union. Foreigners were considered by definition – The Enemy and were limited to living in a certain area of Moscow in rather dilapidated apartment blocks infested with cockroaches and rats, making it difficult . However, he and his wife and son drove there from the UK and made the most of their stay. One of the many stories he told was of the ex UK Labor Prime Minister – Harold Wilson who had long retired and was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s that eventually lead to his death. The leadership in the USSR invited him over for a friendly visit and Keith was set as his aid while on the 3 day trip. At the first meeting with the leaders, he was accompanied by a translator and he commented to the Translator “Mary (His wife’s name who did not accompany him on the trip) please bring me my pipe”. Then turning to the leader – “Mr. Stalin (who had been dead for a couple of decades) it’s so good to see you again”. Not knowing what to do, (Cancel the rest of the appointments, carry on as if nothing had happened) what the Soviets did was to give him a terrific holiday and send him home. It is always interesting to hear some of these “inside stories” from individuals who were part of the events with world leaders.
The second lecture was by a very interesting Engineer – Andrew Roberts, who explained how an archipelago such as the Canary Islands is formed. Starting from the one continent – Pangea – millions of years ago through the separation to from the land masses and oceans of today and the tectonic plate movements and subjugation, he followed the flow of how a group of islands are formed. As the magma moves from the core of the planet Earth it breaks the surface under the sea and eventually forms a volcanic Island. However as the upper tectonic plate moves along over the central mass, the spout for the magma gets cut off and the island moves with the plate. After a while, the pressure builds up such that the magma breaks through the plate and forms a nearby second volcanic island, until the process stops once again and then the cycle is repeated forming other islands in a chain. Over millennia, often the initial islands start being worn down by the climate and ends up under the ocean. We found his talk very understandable and interesting..
The third talk was by Dr. Sandie Sowler who spoke of why seabirds are on the decline, based on Avian Flu, Climate Change and other habitat changes, particularly if certain non native species are introduced to solve other ecological issues.
The Captain’s noon watch comments indicated that we had travelled some 293 nautical miles from Southampton and had 1,054 nautical miles to go to Madeira and we were traveling at an average speed of 17 nautical miles/hour.
We had read in the program that there was a sign up for Archery at sea, so after ordering lunch at the pub, I went to do the sign up thinking it was a couple of minutes. In actuality some 50 people were there and were required to watch a safety video and complete forms, measurements taken for arrow length and dominant eye etc. I rushed the process telling them that I had been an Archery teacher and needed to get back to my wife and lunch. So being the last one into the presentation I was the first one out and was told to report at 3PM by the Pool. There is an area on the 10th deck that is enclosed by glass and is an Archery shooting range for 3 people at a time. There were supposed to be 6 of us but one did not appear, so we went with the instructor to the area and he asked if any of the 5 of us had ever shot a bow and arrow before. It turns out that 3 of us were or had been instructors. It was fun as we each got to let a dozen arrows fly from the nice composite bows. In the 1960’s I had done a lot of competitive archery and training in England. At the time, and I am sure it is still the law of the land, that every male over the age of 18 had to do at least one hour of archery a week. These laws get left on the books and not repealed, but are forgotten when no longer of material use. I then taught Archery at the British High School in Mexico where I was the Physics, Chemistry and Biology teacher in the early 1970’s. It was fun to do that again.
The evening show was the clarinetist – Kenny Marty. playing swing and more, who we had seen before and is really terrific. A fun day at sea in the very mild waves of the Bay of Biscay which is pleasantly abnormal given the usual Gulf Stream circling the land masses of the northern Iberian peninsula and France. No complaints.
Roger & Anne Travels 