What Did Martin Do On the Ship All Day, Every Day?

Early morning on-deck yoga (well, not every day for that one)

Chat with fellow passengers

Buffet breakfast

Chat with fellow passengers

Walk around the deck

Chat with fellow passengers

Attend 'Mariner's Storytime' with Captain Sergei or retired Captain Juergen

Chat with fellow passengers

Do some puzzle

Chat with fellow passengers

Read

Attend ship's choir rehearsal. The choir (dubbed the Royal Clipper Chorus by the captain) began after the first attempt at the 6pm tradition of singing Salve Regina at the wheelhouse. This was a Latin song composed in the middle ages and traditionally sung on ships as a sort of request for safe passage. The first night we assembled on deck and tried to figure out the tune, the words, anything resembling a song. It was a mess.

But one of our fellow passengers just happens to be a harpist and the President of the Brussels National Orchestra. Well, ta da!

So she gathered anyone who was interested in figuring out how to sing Salve Regina, which we did that evening. It was so successful that we became a sort of ad hoc choir, giving three gigs in total (one for Easter, one for Pirate night, and one for Talent night (we did not know about these nights in advance! For Easter we sang "Morning Has Broken", for pirate night we sang a tune from Gilbert & Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance" and some sea shanties, and for talent night we went with "It's a Wonderful World" and "My Land" ). By the way, our musical group included a guitarist and a baroque flutist, so choir practice became a daily before-lunch activity.

 

Chat with fellow passengers

Buffet lunch

Chat with fellow passengers

Read

Chat with fellow passengers

Do some puzzle

Play Bridge

Play Scrabble

Chat with fellow passengers

Sing Salve Regina with Ship's Choir (which is always followed by a small tot of rum)

Eat four course dinner

Chat with fellow passengers

Dance up a storm on a rolling open deck with Jennifer

Chat with fellow passengers

Look at the stars, so bright that Venus shone on the water and the Pleiades could be seen with the naked eye just across from Orion's Belt

It might be hard to see, but that is a refection of
Venus on the sea, with the Pleiades a little down to the right,
taken on our little iphone cameras! 

Chat with fellow passengers

Fall into bed, gently rolling side to side, although occasionally lurching. One night everything on the night shelf fell all over the bed with a particularly big wave.