Saturday, 29th October 2011

The mixed weather has continued. Thursday was spent in Palermo, with sunshine all day. Yesterday, as we steamed down the Adriatic, persistent rain once more set in – postponing the ship building competition for a second time. Late in the afternoon, the Cap-tain made an announcement informing us that there was bad weather ahead, and because of this he had decided to cancel our planned stop in Oporto on Sunday. Instead, he had arranged for us to visit Malaga today, where the weather forecast was good.

Sure enough, we woke to clear blue skies and all went off the ship to explore Malaga again. A lovely day, culminating in the Ship Building competition in one of the pools, with lots of spectators due to the brilliant weather.

Only four 'ships' had been entered into the competition, two of which were pretty basic. Our octopus caused a great deal of amusement, and passed all the tests, but was beaten into second place by a lovely yacht made from water bottles, bin bags and yellow & black safety tape. A satisfactory result, and best of all – we've left the octopus upstairs by the pool so now have a more spacious cabin again!

And the winner...

We're sailing towards Gibraltar now – rough seas tomorrow and Monday, and then we're home.

xx

Janet

xx