The “Grand-class” of cruise ship that is Ventura may be optimised for Caribbean and Mediterranean cruising, but its design doesn’t lend itself to Atlantic swells. Overnight, we have been fighting our way north against a 45-knot headwind and some significant swells. We have been making 18 knots, but the ship was very twitchy. We had to put our clocks forward by one hour during the night so that we are on the same time zone as Spain.
We had a leisurely breakfast, then made our way to the Arena Theatre. Today’s guest speaker (they have had them most days) was Linda Sage. She has clearly had a very interesting career as a psychologist working within the Criminal Justice System. She was giving the first of three talks on serial killers, sex offenders, and murderers. The theatre was full. Whether this was people with a genuine interest, people taking notes, or psychopaths basking in their cleverness and anonymity wasn’t clear. Whatever, the underlying interest, she had a very engaged audience. The next talk in the series is “Women Who Kill” - again, I will be watching for anyone taking notes or recording it on their phones.
After the talk, we stopped off in The Glasshouse for a coffee. The front of the ship was getting quite a bashing and was far more noisy than we had been experiencing at the stern. We enjoyed our coffee and then headed back to our cabin, where we sat on the balcony with our Kindles and several magazines for a few hours. It was delightfully warm, and the sea was slowly quietening down after the overnight skittishness. By 16:00, the sea was starting to wake up again and became quite choppy.
It was formal night again, so we dressed up in our finery. Di had a last-minute change brought about by the choppiness of the ocean and her original plan for higher heels than usual. She decided that she didn’t want to fall off them and break an ankle, so there was a change of shoes and associated outfit. We had dinner as usual in the Bay Tree restaurant. Di and I both started with the Crispy Pork Shoulder with Fennel and Mustard. Though I enjoyed it, Di was less keen. For the main dish, Di chose the Prime Fillet of Beef Medallions drizzled with a Rich Red Wine Jus, which she thoroughly enjoyed. I chose the Pan-fried Sea Bream Escalope with Baby Caper Dressing, which was wonderful.
In the theatre, after dinner, we had a show from Simeon Wood, who was a flautist but played seven different wind instruments (including an NHS walking stick!). He was immensely talented and quite droll. He put on a superb show, and again, we look forward to another later in the cruise.
It’s an early night tonight as we have an early start in Cadiz tomorrow.
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