10/11/12 - Lord Nelson

Day 23 10th Nov
Today's blog is brought to you by the BMs, for an exciting change of perspective, or something like that anyway.
It appears that we're trying to get an extra half-kt of speed out of the washing currently festooning the foredeck, not sure if it'll work, but we don't think the jeans are necessary any more. On that note the sun-tanning effort appears to be starting in earnest, wherever we go on deck it's littered with bodies in various states of undress, chasing the best sun-spot as the sun circles the ship on our steady route south.
We think banoffee-pie will be on the menu soon (woo-hoo), from our observations of current banana status. In other important food-news, the passage *from* the Canaries will feature ice-cream, something absent from the passage *to* Las Palmas. The threat of a bevvy of BMs (our trade union term) sitting on the quay refusing to slip lines seems to have worked.
This morning we convinced the little fore-royal to come out of its yard, by clambering up and enticing it out with biscuits. Our maintenance knowledge and skill knows no bounds.
Last night's film night featured Dog Soldiers, which Neil says is the most realistic war film ever produced.

We're quite pleased with our new watering-cans, and are hoping to turn the bridge deck into a herb and flower garden. The cress is coming along nicely, and we have high hopes for the tomatoes. Unfortunately, Marcin and Jon have watering-can envy.
Neil is fully at home now that the trim-staring has begun. Bits of headlining that turn up randomly not attached to the deckhead get given to Neil, and he gets to wander round and work out where it comes from. I think he should use it to spell amusing sarcastic messages and see how long it is before anyone notices.
The bar appears to be turning into a circus-skills class - juggling is very popular, but we think it'll be more entertaining when the knife-throwing starts. Lion-taming might be interesting too.

The air conditioning is apparently progressing consistently.

It would be wrong to mention here us having witnessed the Captain pinging the Mate's underpants earlier, so we won't. Steve says that'll get him hung for letting that get though, so we look forward to seeing him out on the washing-line on the foredeck tomorrow.

Fishing has begun in earnest as well, as the need for a fish to be kissed on the crossing-the-line ceremony has been realised. We're both pollywogs, and aren't nervous at all. Really. No, really.

That's all for now, and hopefully they won't ask us to write one again.
Your lovely shiny BMs, Neil & Kirsten.