Thursday 3rd December:

A late night, with the alarm set of 5.45am so that we can leave at 7.45am to pick up a hire car. The plans are changed due to my troublesome stomach and palpitations which give me considerable grief when I awake around 2.30am. No headache, but perhaps this is due to too much alcohol, maybe too many peanuts who knows, but I guess I need to cut down on a pre-dinner G&T, two healthy glasses of red wine with dinner, and a large Grand Marnier on the rocks. Whatever, my heart seems to be pounding, and is still pounding, albeit not quite as bad as earlier, as the alarm goes, and so a change of plans. I pass on breakfast and we agree to just mosey round Walvis Bay, via the Shuttle Bus. Our guide of yesterday who promised to pick us up is nowhere to be seen, and is not around at 8.00am, so that would have changed our plans anyway.

Our stroll round Walvis Bay lasts no more than a block, it really has nothing to offer, and although cruise ships have been stopping here for several years, apart from the local tour companies, the town itself has not provided anything to keep tourists in the town, rather than heading out into the desert. We take a cab into Swakopmund, and stroll around there for a couple of hours, and as Ben said, it has grown substantially in the seven years since our last visit. The shanty town has been upgraded with many, many individual colourful substantial dwellings. A massive holiday village is growing rapidly along the oceanside on the outskirts of town, and rest assured these dwellings are not for local people, but many second homes for people from South Africa and beyond.

Our taxi driver is a little flaky, but he gets us back to the shuttle, and we pay up $80 as agreed and I manage a Texan for lunch, that's burger and chips for lunch three days on the trot, and boy you would have to go a long way to find better burgers or chips, and I include those served by Rutland Lions. The sun comes out at last and we spend the afternoon sun bathing skipping Trivia, as we haven't really got into it. It's venue in the Marina lounge, set out in theatre format, makes it unsuitable for a team to chat and agree on an answer, and our Scribe, is a bit lame, and we don't feel too committed to it at all.

Sue & Dennis come down for a pre-dinner drink in our cabin, as we have to dispose of our "champagne on arrival". Lorna wears her diamond earrings for the first time, and by my reckoning must be valued at somewhere in the region of £12K - £15K. I wear my new jacket, which I love and we look good as we go down for our first speciality restaurant dinner at Jacques. A lovely meal, although Lorna is not too impressed with either her souffle or her lamb. My souffle, identical to Lorna's is delicious, as are my sauteed scallops. But as tummy continues to rumble on, I drink very little, and pass on dessert. The evening is completed with a visit to Horizons to listen to Mark Daley, almost certainly another gay on this ship, singing Sinatra, Buble, Nat King Cole; an excellent singer but with nauseating sickly chat about how his family and his godson, pass the sick bucket.

Sue & Dennis are ideal cruise companions, easy going, funny, glad we teamed up with them. The clocks go back by one hour tonight and we have two days at sea as we make our way westward across the Atlantic to Jamestown, St. Helena.