NOSY BE TO DURBAN (DAY 1)
24 November 2006- Friday
A Full Day at Sea
Obviously the ship feels responsible to keep the passengers entertained as they have a full schedule of activities. The only thing that interested me were the meals and lectures and the comedian tonight. Lecture 1 was late morning on Lord Nelson who won a sea battle off the coast of Spain called Trafalgar. This was during the Napoleonic wars and led the British to be able to dominate the seas of the world for a couple of hundred years. The lecturer was our cruise director, Johnathan Neal who I found out is a "sir", that is he has officially been knighted by Queen Elizabeth for raising some 28 million dollars for some British charity. His previous lecture on the history of cruise ships was good, but he trys to dramatize it by adding music- which I think is unnecessary because he has good slides.
Anyway, Horatio Nelson was born in 1758 the youngest of 9 children of the village parson and his mother died when he was 8. His uncle was in the Navy and at age 12 Nelson went to sea as a midshipman and was a captain by age 20. At age 26, .while serving in the west Indies he married a Fannie Nesbit. He lost he vision in his right eye from a shell explosion and thereafter his right pupil was permanently dilated.1797 he became rear admiral and was decorated Knight of Bath (K.B.) At the Battle of Tenerife in 1797 he was shot through the arm on the Thetis and had to have it amputated.. He then met Lady Hamilton who was married to the governor of Naples and they had a lifelong affair (apparemtly with the governor's knowledge) and had a daughter called Horatia and left them both penniless. He sailed to Cadiz, Spain in 1805 and defeated the combined French Spanish navy at the Battle of Trafalgar by a maneuver called crossing the line. Unfortunately he was shot by a sniper as he walked the quarter deak in his full regalia. The shot entered his left sholder and loadged in his spine making him pararplegic. He died 4 hours later, was pickled in a cask of whiskey in Gibraltar and returned to England for a state burial in Westminster Abbey. His ship Victory is preserved at the maritime museum at Greenwich. (Smithsonian has run a Nelson tour for the past few years- expensive).
Had lunch with my safari mates and they are all doing well. Ron wanted to look at his safari pictures on my laptop so we met in the card room after lunch. He and Ann had booked a safari to the Serengeti before meeting us in Nairobi. They are leaving the ship in Cape Town. I copied a few of his best animal shots to my computer. (I think he has the second largest colletion of animal butt shots after me) But as a result of our meeting we missed a lecture on the geology of the Oceans which I recently heard on my Iceland trip.
Early dinner the usual affair, except that I noticed Dill missing for the second night in a row. Dill is the morbidly obese, somewhat demanding lady who was at our table- parking her wheelchair in the hallway (she's really not very mobile except for her mouth). I made comment that I had hoped I hadn't offended her to which the minister's wife retorted- "No, she probably prefers to eat at the buffet- she can get more food that way." Quick meal so as to get up to the comedian's performance- the place was packed and the comedian, who was English, was both a good musician and a singer but he told all the same jokes I heard on a previous cruise.
Rest of the evening was a couple of more chapters of LOST and then the Da vinci Code came on a 10pm, but I only made it throught the introdution scenes. I must have been bitten by a Tsetse fly in Kenya.
A Full Day at Sea
Obviously the ship feels responsible to keep the passengers entertained as they have a full schedule of activities. The only thing that interested me were the meals and lectures and the comedian tonight. Lecture 1 was late morning on Lord Nelson who won a sea battle off the coast of Spain called Trafalgar. This was during the Napoleonic wars and led the British to be able to dominate the seas of the world for a couple of hundred years. The lecturer was our cruise director, Johnathan Neal who I found out is a "sir", that is he has officially been knighted by Queen Elizabeth for raising some 28 million dollars for some British charity. His previous lecture on the history of cruise ships was good, but he trys to dramatize it by adding music- which I think is unnecessary because he has good slides.
Anyway, Horatio Nelson was born in 1758 the youngest of 9 children of the village parson and his mother died when he was 8. His uncle was in the Navy and at age 12 Nelson went to sea as a midshipman and was a captain by age 20. At age 26, .while serving in the west Indies he married a Fannie Nesbit. He lost he vision in his right eye from a shell explosion and thereafter his right pupil was permanently dilated.1797 he became rear admiral and was decorated Knight of Bath (K.B.) At the Battle of Tenerife in 1797 he was shot through the arm on the Thetis and had to have it amputated.. He then met Lady Hamilton who was married to the governor of Naples and they had a lifelong affair (apparemtly with the governor's knowledge) and had a daughter called Horatia and left them both penniless. He sailed to Cadiz, Spain in 1805 and defeated the combined French Spanish navy at the Battle of Trafalgar by a maneuver called crossing the line. Unfortunately he was shot by a sniper as he walked the quarter deak in his full regalia. The shot entered his left sholder and loadged in his spine making him pararplegic. He died 4 hours later, was pickled in a cask of whiskey in Gibraltar and returned to England for a state burial in Westminster Abbey. His ship Victory is preserved at the maritime museum at Greenwich. (Smithsonian has run a Nelson tour for the past few years- expensive).
Had lunch with my safari mates and they are all doing well. Ron wanted to look at his safari pictures on my laptop so we met in the card room after lunch. He and Ann had booked a safari to the Serengeti before meeting us in Nairobi. They are leaving the ship in Cape Town. I copied a few of his best animal shots to my computer. (I think he has the second largest colletion of animal butt shots after me) But as a result of our meeting we missed a lecture on the geology of the Oceans which I recently heard on my Iceland trip.
Early dinner the usual affair, except that I noticed Dill missing for the second night in a row. Dill is the morbidly obese, somewhat demanding lady who was at our table- parking her wheelchair in the hallway (she's really not very mobile except for her mouth). I made comment that I had hoped I hadn't offended her to which the minister's wife retorted- "No, she probably prefers to eat at the buffet- she can get more food that way." Quick meal so as to get up to the comedian's performance- the place was packed and the comedian, who was English, was both a good musician and a singer but he told all the same jokes I heard on a previous cruise.
Rest of the evening was a couple of more chapters of LOST and then the Da vinci Code came on a 10pm, but I only made it throught the introdution scenes. I must have been bitten by a Tsetse fly in Kenya.
Labels: Nairobi to Rio 2006
posted by DT at 11:23 AM
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