At Sea

23^rd March 2012

It is a hazy morning, but the sun is shining and the sea relatively calm, when we head out for our morning walk. There is a noticeable increase in shipping as we track our way up the Chinese Coast, in the Taiwan Strait.

We attended a morning destination lecture on Busan, at 10.45am. Busan is our next destination after Shanghai. Because there will be less “at sea” days, from now until we leave Japan, they are having to cram the destination lectures in as quickly as they can, to cover the various ports before we arrive.

By noon we are nearing the top of the Taiwan Strait and are 24nm off the Chinese Coast.

Carole headed off to her usual mahjong game at 1pm. At lunch we were marveling at how hot it was, and it was too glary to watch the big outdoor movie screen which was showing the James Bond movie , Dr No, with a very young Sean Connery.

A few hours later, we have cleared the top of Taiwan and are back in the East China Sea. Conditions have deteriorated considerably. The temperature has dropped to mid teens, seas and wind are up, and we sail into a thick sea mist requiring the fog horn to be used at regular intervals for the next few hours.

It remained cool and bumpy for the rest of the day, and through the evening.

24^th March 2012

Our walk this morning was in bracing conditions. Temperature around 10 C and there is a strong headwind. The shipping traffic has increased further and this morning we see a lot of small to medium sized fishing boats, so figure we can’t be too far off the Chinese Coast and in shallower water. The number of keen walkers is severely depleted, and we saw a few quit on their first lap as they came around the stern of the ship and into the wind.

It was another destination lecture this morning, this time on Nagasaki. They have been very informative, and particularly valuable if you are planning to do your own thing, rather than go on an organized tour. We have tended not to book too many of the organized tours.

Following this talk was another on the history of Korea prior to the Korean War, which we decided to attend and also found it very interesting.

The day continues to be cold, but clear, with around 25-30 knots of breeze from NNE.

The number of fishing boats increases as the day goes on, as we continue to track up the Chinese Coast and by 12 noon we are 30nm of Liuheng Dao . The Nearest major centre is Ningbo.

Tonight we are scheduled to pick up a pilot at 11pm, to commence navigating up the Huangpu River towards Shanghai, with an expected arrival time of 6am.

After dinner we went to a movie called “An American in China”, and went to be setting the alarm for an early start to see if we could capture some of the view heading up the river.