Overnight we sailed up the straights of Malacca towards the Indian Ocean, and at about 12 midday today we were in it, and will stay in it until we reach Sri Lanka in 3 days time. It's about 30C and humid. There are a lot of sunbathers and swimmers. We've both spent a little bit of time in the gym/water today, meeting new people and chatting in the hot tub. It's where all the idle gossip about errant passengers seems to get shared too. It's hard to know how accurate it is but rumour has it that there have already been three evictees! One woman was said to have been found stealing clothes from ships'shop and the launderette. Two people were reportedly removed for fighting. I haven't seen anything like that, and here I am extolling the virtues of the cruise!
Sea days are all about keeping us customers occupied and satisfied, and the daily Horizon is packed with activities for everyone, some really do interest me, and some would drive me to distration. This ship, Aurora, is a family ship, which feels so much more normal than the oldies only variety (Arcadia last year was oldies only). So Aurora has children's pools and children's clubs too, and some normal family noises. For adults yoga, Pilates, craft, singing, Spanish, various lectures, photography competitions, pub quizzes and full range of musical entertainment most of the day. But my highlight was art, watercolour painting. Today's subject pagodas. Khachik came too. We'd brought all our art materials from home. So we sketched a pagoda landscape at sunset, and laid down our background colours ready for detail to be added tomorrow.
There are art classes twice a day, but for now I think we will just do one in the morning. Let's see. The art teacher is very different from Easa, our art teacher last year. His name is Tony Westmore. He is friendly and accessible, moving around the class all the time, offering advice and making suggestions. I like that a lot. He is said to specialise in maritime scenes, rather than the animals and people we first learned with. I have an open mind and because we are going to learn something new, and I feel so glad of the opportunity to paint every day again.
Of course, I forgot to say again we could eat all day and night if we wanted.
Unfortunately for Khachik the satellite telly has gone down, meaning that the two football matches scheduled yesterday (Newcastle v Sunderland and Manchester United v Manchester City) weren't shown, and the scores remained unknown until a couple of hours ago, 24 hours later. I think there are some disgruntled football fans around, but I am quite happy with the loops of chick flics we have instead today, there appears to be a young Tom Hanks channel - Splash, Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, and old travel programmes selected especially for us as they either mention or detail places we'll be visiting.
To be honest I could just sit on the balcony watching, smelling, tasting and listening to the sea, and be very happy.
Until tomorrow....bye for now
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