After five days, we are still chugging towards Mauritius. The weather has been fantastic, with calm blue seas and sunshine all the way. Not a ship have we seen. Nor land. Nor, for that matter, any sea life such as whales in the bright blue deep. So it’s best not to think about what might happen in an emergency, a million miles from anywhere. In fact an emergency of sorts happened yesterday. The Captain, in his daily noon log informed us of the sad news that a young crew member died overnight – apparently in his sleep, so the goss goes. With another day and night to go to Mauritius, his body will apparently be taken ashore for an autopsy there. Very sad.

But life goes on, and with so many sea days, Peter has been taking iPad improvement study every day – and wow, how much is on those things that we don’t know about!  We’ve been having ballroom dancing classes, ranging from the Viennese waltz to the cha-cha and slow waltz. Today it’s the samba! I’ve joined the QM2 Cunard Choir, and we’re performing in the Theatre Royal on the14th, all good fun. I’ve paid a couple of visits to the hairdressers and spa, watched a cookery demo, and we’ve been to shows at the planetarium, the cinema and the theatre. We’ve attended lectures on everything from metabolism to Mauritius!  Never a dull moment.

We’ve met some lovely and interesting people on board, and were invited to the Captain’s cocktail party the other evening (along with about 200 other people, I might add!) We met some junior officers, and last night were invited to the Captain’s table for dinner (only six other people this time). All very swish and formal, and thoroughly enjoyable.

Food on board is, well, excellent and varied, fresh, ample and irresistible. And, yes, perhaps we will cling on to  a few pounds afterwards, even after walking the promenade deck three time round for a mile. Yes, this ship is BIG! But after six days, we’ve just about found our way round to all the various restaurants, bars, public rooms, swimming pools and deck areas. But it’s still too easy to turn the wrong way out of the lift and end up walking what seems like half a mile in the wrong direction!

The Captain has just announced that the expected tropical cyclone that was tracking towards Mauritius has just changed course, sparing us a change of route that was a possibility. So tomorrow we go ashore for the first time since boarding. And although the sea has been calm, the gentle rocking of the ship has developed our sea legs – so I hope we don’t stagger too much once our feet hit land!