Woke up this morning at about 6.30 a.m. (we have advanced the clocks one hour during the night), to a fairly thick fog with visibility less than half a mile. Curiously, there was no fog signal sounded until about 9 a.m. Naughty, I am sure this was so as not to wake the passengers but as far as I recollect the International Regulations for Collisions at Sea give no such respite to passengers or anyone else. I presume that we are in an area where two sea currents, one warm and one cold meet and this is the cause of the fog bank through which we are traveling. The temperature is now up into the mid-sixties and I am sure that in Montevideo tomorrow, it will be much higher.
Last night we had a very enjoyable and laugh-filled party in Harvey and Barbara’s magnificent suite and this was followed by lovely meal in the steakhouse. The food is excellent and the company just superb.
The nightly ‘entertainment’, (note the emphasis!!) was a word game show where unusual words were defined in different ways by a panel and then the audience, by acclaim, had to decide who had given the correct answer. I have seen this sort of show done well before but this was not a good example of it and my stay was brief. We have on board a British couple who are a comedian/magic duo. It is what I would call, at best, ‘end-of-the-pier’ entertainment. There is also another Brit (well he is actually an ex-pat who lives in southern Spain), who gives ‘interest talks’ I am sure this is a great gig for him as most of what he talks about plus much more could be found on Wikipedia, where I am sure that he found it. He has had talks on Darwin, the Falklands War of 1982, the Battle of the Falklands during the first World War and other things. He and his wife seem to get a free cruise in return for not an awful lot. Hey! more power to his elbow. He has a pony-tail, I can’t really trust a person of his age who sports one of those. There is also a ‘Master Chef’ (his name is Jean-Jacques Dietrich, which sounds like a Franco-German hybrid), who gives classes.
At lunchtime today we will meet to discuss what to do in Montevideo where we have no formal excursions planned. I had thought that I would go to Colonia del Sacramento which is a UNESCO Heritage site but the place is over 100 kms away and the tour there is 8 1/2 hours which is a bit longer than I would prefer, especially as it is expected to be quite hot. This will have to be for another time. There are a number of interesting sites within walking distance in the city as well as places for lunch and doubtless for shopping. However, it seems that the main focus of the visit to Buenos Aires on the day after, for the ladies, is shopping and the stores which sell silver goods close to the Opera House. I am not sure that I will join them for this. I would like to see if there is a tour of the Buenos Aires Opera House as it was under construction when I was there last.
It is now afternoon and the fog has cleared and the ship is making good progress towards Montevideo.
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