The Colourful Band

Native face decorations

Grenada Steelband Sample

Quality may be suspect

Grenada Cruise Terminal after Taxi Tour

Sat in cool terminal area Grenada port, St Georges. Just been on taxi tour of island with another couple. Main roads like UK B roads, but very slow and peaceful travel.

Lush, green tropical vegetation, it is warm and moist. Another lovely taxi driver, again very knowledgeable, seen spice demo and bought some nutmeg, mace and spice necklaces.

Island totally self sufficient in fruit and veg, it is growing everywhere, bananas, mangoes, papaya, etc all the spices,  they have subway, and kentuky chicken but NO MacDonalds the Grenadians prefer to eat Chicken and fish.

Around the Island lots of wonderful views everywhere,  hills, hills and panoramice views of jungles and sea and sand. Wonderful! Back to ship soon for lunch the more strenuous chilling. Bliss ;-)

Off to Alter do Chao on the Amazon next, may not be any blog updates until we get there. Take care.

Taxi Tour of Barbados

Resting after lunch, having returned from a four hour tour of the island. Lovely Bajan taxi driver called Kush gave us an informed commentary stopped where we asked and took us to see the panoramas and the high altitude viewing points. It is a beautiful island, can understand why folks come here for hols. Now, 14:30 here -4 hours GMT. Photo from Port area Bridgetown, shows ship conservatory deck where we have breakfast. Set sail for Grenada at 18:00 no plans for rest of day - except chilling.

Extra day in Barbados - Taxi Tour

Off round island hopefully to see sights in shared taxi. May see north easy of island depends on serendipity.

Bridgetown - Steel Drums

Walked round Bridgetown, been and looked at beach - very hot. Sat and listened to steel drums in shaded cafe. Off back to ship for lunch, free wifi in port very good.

Arrived Bridgetown, Barbados after 6 day's at sea.

Air Temp 24 °C Sea Temp 27 °C
Latitude 13°00' Longitude 59° 37'
Sunny Barbados, smiling Mo and Rob, thoroughly chilled after 6 relaxing days at sea from Madeira. Seen a very funny Tom O'Connor twice, a brilliant  pianist from Manchester Maria King, who played Rhapsody in Blue flawlessly and told great jokes, including you shouldn't worry about yours looks, because while you cannot choose your face ............
You can - pick your NOSE!
Super food, even a village fete on board Adonia and lots more dancing and great conversations with nice people. Hope everyone is well back home and it is not too cold for the time of year where you are? Just learnt some containers for the ship have been delayed and we now are marooned in Bridgetown for two whole days,tragedy ;-) now  get to Greneda a day later and miss out on a stop to Georgetown, Guyana, heho the least of out troubles. Mo and Rob are good. Blog updates usually on port days only.

Arrived Madeira only stop before Barbados

Relaxed into the routine now, both Mo and I been to gym, already met lovely people, good food, conversation and entertainment. Weather has been mixed we have gained our sea legs, always been well enough to eat what a surprise. If you see this, we have been able to access wireless data package on shore. Better hotter weather should be starting from today.

First day at sea West of Brest, France

Good nights, sleep wait for this - we are off to the gym!
Then Breakfast. Leaving shallow seas of the English channel, to travel across Bay of Biscay, from Point de F'az near Brest towards NW Spain and Cape Finisterre. Looking forward to a calmish sea light winds and relaxing day.

Set sail, to Scottish drums and pipes + fireworks

Slight delay, sailed away to Scottish pipes and drums and a splendid fireworks display, Mo and I really excited and happy. Dinner at 6:30 not finished unpacking yet. Uncertain internet access for next 3 days, no photo hoping to post this before lose dignal

Luggage for two!

Fingers crossed it all makes it to the cabin ⚅, got longer arms now, hardest bit of journey over now - getting from taxi to coach.

Sun, Horizon and Windscreen Wipers

Coach on way to Heathrow now, sun low in sky, hopefully will only see a low sun at sunrise and sunset after Madeira.

Test blog update by email

Fix to GMT time zone. Off out to eat again Beehive at Thorner.

Just spotted that BLOGGER is not showing GMT date and time when post a blog entry.

Will try to fix before tomorrow.

Actual date: 12th January 2012 7:30am  Horsforth,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2646558
wind very loud and blustery, currently 35MPH states" Cloud and patchy rain will quickly clear through the morning to leave a much colder day than recently with a chilly wind. It will become dry though with long sunny spells developing. Early gales steadily easing" They are not kidding.

Wondering about the weather in the bay of Biscay. When we were on Adonia in November 10 day trip started with 5M swell. Fingers crossed that trip to Madeira will be gentler this time, weather outlook from Southampton Friday tomorrow is promising.

From BBC @ http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2637487

Morning

SUNRISE 08:04

06:00

4°C5MPHNORTH NORTH WESTERLY

09:00

4°C5MPHNORTHERLY

Afternoon

SUNSET 16:25

12:00

7°C7MPHNORTH NORTH EASTERLY

15:00

7°C7MPHNORTH NORTH EASTERLY

Evening

18:00

5°C6MPHNORTH NORTH EASTERLY

21:00

4°C5MPHNORTH EASTERLY

Night

00:00

3°C4MPHEAST NORTH EASTERLY

03:00

2°C5MPHEAST NORTH EASTERLY

• Friday
  A generally frosty start with any mist slowly clearing through the morning. Dry with some good sunny spells, but feeling much colder.

UV

1(UK RANGE: 1-7)

Pollution

Low

3 sleeps left!
Mo has finished packing. Three large cases, one medium, one holdall, two fight bags + hand luggage.
Mo's packing is amazing!

Farewell Meal - Akbars Bradford + P&O videos

Off out to celebrate by going for a meal with some friends and family to Akbars in Bradford.

Really getting excited now only  6 more nights at home before we are off.

Just found these 4 videos from P&O on YouTube and watched them again!

 video1 Animated map of the whole journey and details Southampton south to Madeira - west to Barbados - south to Grenada - Georgetown - into the Amazon Santarem - Parintins - Manaus - Alta do Chao - Fortaleza,
video2,  now travel south from Recife Brazil - Salvador - Buzios - Rio de Janeiro - Montevideo - Buenos Aires - Puerto Madryn - Port Stanley - Cape Horn - Ushuaia
video3 , turning north through the Beagle Channel - Punta Arenas - Amalia Glacier - PIO X Glacier - Puerto Chacabuco - Puerto Montt - Santiago - Coquimbo - Arica - Lima - Salaverry - Manta - Panama Canal - Limon - Roatan - Cozumel - New Orleans - Key West - Port Evergladeso
video4,  homeward going east Nassau - Half Moon Cay - Ponta Delgada - Vigo - Southampton

Really looking forward to seeing these places for real.

12 days to go

If you hadn't noticed we are getting excited still to pack, and lists to make.

We have done some planning as you can imagine, but thank goodness we don't have a weight limit because we go from Southampton.

What tech to take? cameras, memory cards, Netbook, mp3 player, android mobiles for on shore cafe wi-fi access, plus all the chargers and transfer cables, and batteries. Plus low tech, paper, pencils, pen, notebook and good old fashioned books ;-)