The first full day aboard dragged a little as you get used to the rhythm of the ship, numerous activities regularly punctuated with meals. Breakfast in the dining room or the sun lounge, beef tea at 1000, lunch in the dining room or the sun lounge, afternoon tea in the main lounge or sun lounge and the more formal dinner in 2 sittings, 1845 and 2000, in the dining room. With fair weather comes activities on the sun deck to the aft of the ship.
One morning after tea there was a deck quoits tournament which was new to many, but the old hands were clearly a little rusty which levelled the playing field.
The next deck game was shuffleboard and I contrived to win the tournament with a large dose of beginners luck.
Over four evenings before dinner on the first leg to Tristan da Cunha there was a team quiz tournament. Brian carefully recruited a team, the ‘Unusual Suspects’, from newcomers and old hands and apart from one lacklustre showing we won the first tournament. Our score caries forward to the second leg tournament, so we have a bit of a head start.
There were a number of old documentaries about Tristan da Cunha shown which gave more of an insight to those of us who knew little about the island.