Saturday May 25, 2024 – At sea on route to Edinburgh, Scotland
Our first full day of this “Third Segment” of the total 5 segments that make up the entire trip. Patsy and David enjoyed getting to know the ship, although there are so many places and activities, it takes a while to become familiar with all the amenities.
The management were all basically the same except for:
Entertainment Director – Michael Harvey replaced Neil Kelly as he went ashore into the offices to work out the details of the “Naming of the Ship” ceremony in Liverpool.
Chief Medical Officer – Dr. Nadine du Rand replaced the prior one.
We missed the first lecture which was a Port Presentation by Emily as her “squeaky voice” and minimal imparting of information was not to our liking. The second lecture by James “Midge” Ure (born 1953) to a standing room only theatre crowd, was excellent. He spoke of his early childhood growing up for the first 10 years of his life in a one-bedroom tenement flat in Cambuslang (near Glasgow, Scotland) with his brother, sister and parents, later moving to a new house in nearby Eastfield. His with a father that drove a delivery bus for the local bakery to stardom and Grammy award winner. He was a partner with Bob Geldof creating the aid for Ethiopia and Africa concerts Band Aid & Live Aid and the song sung by many stars “Do They Know It’s Christmas” the proceeds of which still go to the Live Aid Trust. He has worked with many bands such as Ultravox, Thin Lizzy and Silk and yet his prize possession is the first guitar which his parents helped him buy for 50% of his father’s weekly wage – 3 UK pounds!.
The second lecture was by the Marine Biologist who lives in the Orkney Islands – Emma Neave-Webb who spoke about the whales and other mammals that we might see around the Scottish waters over the next few days. She started talking about the evolution of whales going back 50+ million years ago. Some 49MM years ago Amulocetus natans, still more on land that at sea looked a little like a dog with 4 feet and a very large mouth. Over the generations the limbs started to be converted into fins and by 33 Million years ago, Dorudon atrox, the hind legs looked more like stubs and the front legs were fins with the tail starting to form the typical form we see today. The Orca, we know today has been around since 11 million years ago. Like other mammals, they need air, so they have to come to the surface to breathe, and the nostril (blowhole) is closed between breaths. They are warm blooded so need the blubber to store energy, insulate and increase buoyancy; they need to eat very large quantities of food; and they give birth to live young and feed them with milk for the first year of life. The Blue Whale has a heart that is larger that a family car, humans can swim through the veins and arteries, they are over 100 feet in length, the heaviest one weighed in at 210 tons, their tongue weighs more than an elephant, they eat 4 tons of krill at a time; their calf weighs 3 tons+ at birth, drinks 100 gallons of mother’s milk per day for the first year and gains about 200 lbs a day while developing. All really fascinating. The Captain’s Noon day announcement indicated that we have travelled 250 knots since leaving Southampton at an average speed of 16.2 knots, leaving 290 knots to reach Edinburgh (Queensferry), Scotland. The rest of the day consisted of Lunch at the Britania, formal dinner and the theatre show – Noel Coward’s “Brief Encounter” adapted by Emma Rice, and produced by David Pugh rounded out the day.
Roger & Anne Travels 