Monday, 5 August

Today was “Hump Day,” so to speak, for Ellen and me.  We had been on the ship for seven days, and we had seven more days to go.

I got up at 06:00 and went into the passengers’ lounge to make coffee.  There was a little room off the lounge that was marked as a laundry room for the ship’s crew, and while I was making coffee the ship’s Master came in to use the laundry room.  When he came out he saw me waiting for the coffee to brew, and he asked me if I liked European coffee.  When he clarified that he meant espresso, I said yes.  Then he invited me up to the bridge to have some.

After I took Ellen her coffee, I went up to the bridge and the Master made me a cup of espresso from a Krup’s espresso maker (and whole coffee beans).  The coffee was good, but just being able to stand of the bridge and watch the day begin was great.

I noticed we were going 19 knots, and I asked the Master if he thought we were going to make Liverpool on time.  He said yes: we are doing 19 knots and the Labrador current was at our back (pushing us).  He was committed to getting to London for the early tide, and then being in Hamburg by the 12th.

At 07:30 we were at 48-21-37 N, 32-35-21 W.  So we would still seem to be moving north.

For whatever reason -- probably because I had had a little too much wine the night before -- I was exhausted that morning, and after breakfast I napped for 2 1/2 hours.  It was a deep, deep sleep, and I felt 100% better when I finally got up.

The weather in the morning was sort of like the day before -- very overcast -- but not so solid. As the day wore on, the sky broke and after lunch there were long periods of sunlight, with intermittent periods of cloudy shade.

That night we advanced the clocks an hour.  We were then in the same time zone as Reykjavic, Iceland.  Our evening position was 49-7-28 N, and 26-41-58 W.

I seemed to recall that a degree of latitude is 60 nautical miles, and I calculated that we were about 270 nautical miles north of Halifax.  

The sunset was absolutely spectacular.  

For starters, the sky was almost all overcast, except for a very small sliver on and above the western horizon.  The grey sky in all directions made the sea grey in all directions. It was like being inside a giant, translucent steel ball.  

If you ever saw the original movie, “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” imagine Gort the robot's head.

Gort's head was pretty much a metal spheriod, with a visor that would open up a crack to allow Gort to destroy things with his laser vision weapon.  Like this...

Now imagine being inside of a hollow Gort’s head, seeing grey in all directions.  Then the visor opens just a sliver, and through that sliver and off in the far distance is another world, and a riot of orange-red-yellow colors lighting the clouds in an absolutely spectacular fashion.   

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anything quite like it.  In every other direction -- up, down, forward, backward, to the sides -- the world was a cold, gun-metal grey...except for that sliver of riotous color blazing through to us through Gort's visor.