On board for a full day of sailing culminating in the first of two formal nights.

What can we say Seabourn standards have been maintained, food and service brilliant. Weather generally still poor, intermittent light drizzle and still long trouser weather.

Cruises are great for people watching and this one is no different. The first individual to come to our attention is a loud, cigar smoking American. For the purposes of the blog we will call this American Hank. My references to Hank ( I expect him to feature in the blog a number times) are of course opinion based on observation and may not be fact - my lawyer told me to put this in !

Hank is on the cruise with an older American lady, we are not quite sure what the relationship between the two is but Hank appears to operate a bit like a male escort. Hank spends 90% of his time in the bar, if you are near the bar and female you might call him Handy Hank although of course I may be doing him a disservice he may just be an outgoing friendly touchy feely American drunk. On this particular day Hank had clearly decided to get the most out of his all inclusive deal, to say that he was ever present at the bar is an understatement. As his alcohol consumption increased so his loudness and handiness increased. My prediction is that it will all end in tears at some point on the cruise.

I digress, stressful moment number 2 arrived as we dressed for the formal dinner that was supposed to be black tie. Unfortunately we had not packed my dress shirt or any black socks. After threatening to turn up in chinos with a Hawaiian shirt sun glasses and my bow tie (I had a strop) Mrs Wood came to the rescue. A couple of force fed Jack Daniels and a call to Seabourn restored peace, Seabourn delivered a dress shirt that fitted me (no mean feat) and I had calmed down.

Pre dinner drinks are a pre-requisite before dinner so we met in the bar, Hank and partner were in attendance both slightly worse for wear. As Sue left the bar briefly to return to our suite she was surprised to find Hank on the floor in the corridor doing an impression of a dead spider lying on its back with his legs in the air. I pointed out to Sue that he was unlikely to be participating in an on board game of charades and that alcohol was probably the cause.

We enjoyed dinner, however, I had forgotten to mention that by now the South China sea was living up to its reputation and whilst it wasn't time to don the life jackets or break out the sick bags regardless of how much you had to drink it was not possible to navigate the corridors of the boat in a straight line. Clearly we needed more drink to counter the wave effects so retiring to the bar (I think a theme is beginning to emerge here ) we took on more alcohol and decided to liven things up by taking to the dance floor. You will have seen underwater film of long seaweed strands being flung from side to side as wave after wave crashes into the shore…………. The dance floor resembled something like that. No matter the route you had selected to avoid fellow dancers or to show off that cool dance move it was all to no avail as a tide of dress suited dancers and their partners were washed unceremoniously from side to side on the dance floor. It was a miracle that there were no series injuries - a good time had by all.

Enjoy the snow,

Dave and the crew……… Sue, Jan, Bridget, John and John