Monday, 25th June 2012 9:55 AM

Waking up, looking at the clock: 6:00 a.m. and I feel fine: no headache, no weird feeling in my stomach, for the first time ever on board I feel fit and well-rested in the morning…yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah….

Outside the window, it’s still foggy. According to the captain, it could be a bit rough today, and tomorrow it’s supposed to get really wild…
So for me, that’s basically the next highlight before the big crew BBQ outside by the pool on Saturday evening (the guys were already talking about it on Saturday!!!). I’ll make sure my things are sea-safe tonight and get my seasickness gum ready.
At the moment, everything is calm except for a little swaying. Outside, however, it’s quite windy and uncomfortable (I already checked this morning).

At breakfast, the same situation as (almost) every day before: not a soul in sight. But this time, not even Jean was pottering about somewhere. So, if Thomas’s plate hadn’t already been used,
I would have guessed that the entire crew had been abducted by aliens overnight. It’s kind of strange when everything is prepared and then there’s really not a soul around. And then my boarding pass was lying on the table without any explanation or note… Everything was bit strange.

When I had almost finished breakfast, Lucien, who had caught a cold and therefore hadn’t been at the party yesterday, and his table neighbor, who today looked even more done in than yesterday, when they had to work almost all night through, finally emerged.

Now I hear people running around once in a while – for once, I’m sitting in the salon so as not to completely shut myself off from the outside world – and the captain’s wife has already done her laundry, but on the whole it’s still very quiet.

So I’m going to devote myself to the Savant book and let myself be surprised by what the day brings.

1:15 PM (after lunch):

Not much happened this morning: I read, listened to music, and played Spider Solitaire—that’s about it.
But at lunch, I heard the latest news: there’s another birthday party tonight at 6:30 p.m. This time, I’m going to eat on time, otherwise things will get out of hand.

Also, during the pre-drinks earlier, the guy sitting across from me (I really have to ask him his name) asked the captain about Bombay Sapphire.
Wow, it would be great if we could buy Bombay in Martinique.

They went through the alcohol order earlier, and I think there are 4-5 different types of rum (it’s just like being a pirate) and probably 2-3 different whiskeys. I said that rum gives me a headache, to which the captain replied that it wasn’t the rum, but the lemon. Yeah, right!!! *lol*

Before lunch, I don’t participate in the alcohol consumption anymore, just like the cadets and all other sensible people.
After all, there’s also coke, tonic water, peppermint syrup, and
stuff like that. But others drink their whiskey or pastis there every day — pretty crazy.

Otherwise, there’s a fire drill tomorrow, and since I don’t have anything else to do anyway, I might go and watch. The guys all thought it was a good idea, so… I’ll ask the captain later where I
need to go. The crew only finds out the location shortly before the drill.

The rest of the time, lunch was a really boring event: the guys were chatting in French and I hoped that the words will miraculously stick in my memory and that I will suddenly become fluent in French by just listening… well, one can always hope ;-).

By the way, the weather is still the same as it was this morning.