Relaxing sea days

Tuesday18th August - The last two days have been relatively quiet after the hectic three days in New York, Newport and Boston. Up early for a swim yesterday but today slept in and got up just in time to attend choir practice at 12.15pm – isn’t as bad as it sounds as the last two days we have had to put our watches forward an hour at 9am. Great time to do it as it really doesn’t interrupt a nights sleep or anything else for that matter. Will get my swim in this evening sometime. The gym has been closed for the last few days while they replace all the equipment – new ones, state of the art by the looks – and they have added a rowing machine. Mason has been attending all the lectures on the places we will be visiting and together with the research we have done, helps us decide what we will do when we go ashore. Looking forward to Cobh (Cork) in Ireland. Apparently they have been told that we are coming and as it is the first time this number of Australians and NZers have visited, they have planned a big welcome with lots of festivities. Will be quite exciting I think. Went to see a very talented musician play classical, swing and jazz last night and she could sing as well as being very pleasing to the eye! We are told by the Captain that we have had the best weather he has seen on this trip so hope it stays that way. The seas are very calm and, I believe, there has been some fairly bad weather and storms after we have left. Had a hair cut today by a very nice Irish girl by the name of Lisa Walsh – she was excited as her family will be coming to see her when we dock in Cork – she lives not very far from there.