Mediterranean meanderings.

We entered the Mediterranean in the dark yesterday evening with the lights of Tangiers twinkling at us from not too far away………..

……. but the sea day before was a big day for James.  He won his first shuffle board competition! Watched by Ian, Dave, Liz and Chris he was overwhelmed by the success (and had to lie down!) After four cruises he’s finally won his first gold star (and a very expensive gold star!).

At 6 o’ clock that evening we attended a concert in the Atrium by “The Ventura” Singers – made up of 100 passengers who had been practicing for this occasion for the last two weeks - and very good they were too.

We had a lovely elephant to come home to that night.

Berthing in Malaga for the day on Wednesday we started by having a walk around the central part of the city.  The cathedral is so big you can’t get a proper perspective of it as the streets are relatively narrow.  There was chilly wind blowing and, as there was so much shade due to the high buildings, it was a bit uncomfortable to walk around.

So we headed out of town (Doug posing with a lovely specimen of his favourite flower the Bird of Paradise) and took a taxi to the nearest beach………..

…….. which was wonderfully deserted and where we could enjoy the sunshine and a beer……….

…….. and a good walk along the mile or so of beach all by ourselves.

We took the local bus the 8 kilometres back to Malaga ………..

……… past Malaga’s own very quiet beach …….

……. and back “home” for dinner with friends Michele and Nigel.

2500 passengers left “Ventura” today (Wednesday) and they included virtually every single one of the lovely people we’d got to know over the last two weeks.  We’ve still got some wonderful crew members who we have great fun with so we’re not quite “Billy No Mates” but it does mean we’ll have fun fishing out some nice people, out of the 2000 that joined the ship today, to enjoy the next leg of the journey with.  We are now doing a very leisurely 12 knots towards our next port of call, Majorca.