Day 5 Sunday 15th March: North Sea
The ship did not rock’n’ roll too much overnight. We went to the buffet for breakfast only this time I had a freshly made omelette followed by a bowl of fruit for breakfast.
The Plaza Woman
The crime lecture was later today at 11.15 am and again it was in the large theatre.
This lecture was about another death in Norway. This time it was a woman shot dead in a hotel in Oslo. She had booked in using a false passport. Just like the Isdal woman she is still unidentified.
We heard about the team that Rod has put together to try and solve both murders. He has identified a suspect for both women’s deaths.
Last afternoon
After the lecture we went up to the buffet again and this time I had a salad with chicken goujons. Proving that you can at least do a little bit of dieting while on a cruise ship.
We added more layers and we went for a 3 mile walk around the decks. We were now passing windmills in a large farm off the coast of Norfolk.
The containers of Arctic immersion suits had now been removed from the Promenade Deck. I am guessing that the hiring of the suits was one of the reasons that Aurora did all her Northern Lights cruises in consecutive weeks.
My phone was now getting a 4G signal. While we were outside I took advantage and downloaded emails and send WhatsApp messages.
Later in the afternoon after checking on the TV map I realised that we were quite close to Southend in Essex. Then I had an even stronger 4G signal to use the Internet.
We were confirmed to be off the ship at 9:10 and this was our motivation to start and finish our packing.
White Cliffs
At 6 pm we were passing the white cliffs of Dover and I had even better signal on our phones. We both made calls back to family to assure everyone that we were okay.
Ahead of Aurora we could see other ships in the Channel.
Looking North.
Last evening
We met our friends back in the Crows Nest for pre-dinner drinks. The downside was that this evening another group was playing there. The music was too loud for reasonable conversation.
Our last dinner was in an almost empty restaurant. I started with the ship’s prawn cocktail, a Cobb salad and then a steak.
A quick calculation said that we did have some money left and I ordered a bottle of wine to have with this last meal.
As usual I had asked for my steak to be medium rare when it came it looked more like pork and was a funny grey colour all the way through. One of my fellow passengers on the table had a similar looking steak and we both sent our steaks back. A little while later two more meals arrived and the steaks were exactly the same. The lady opposite tried to eat hers but I just left mine. The poor waiters were very upset and even offered to go and try again to get us yet another steak, I told him not to bother.
Having skipped my main course I felt justified in having a summer berry pudding.
In the theatre there was to be a show by Zoe Tyler and just like earlier by the time we got to the theatre there was no room. Instead we went into Anderson’s and had one last drink.
Back in our cabin we put the last suitcase out into the hallway. As a nice surprise there was a carnation on our bed with a nice card from the Captain.
