A very easy end to the voyage. Credibly long fast track line, but moved through rapidly and was through immigration by 10 after seven. caught taxi to the Acela.
Viewing deck was very full may be a third of the passengers will watching the arrival into New York. A few final shots.
A final stop at H&H
Acela and onward to the Tower
FIn
QB continues to improve though still quite a ways to go to fully recover energy.
At sea, en route to New York
we pass to the south of Georges Bank.This is a large submerged sandbank between Cape Cod and Cape Sable Island, which has been a long standing important fishing ground. then set a westerly course towards the New York Traffic Separation Scheme and the Nantucket Fairways. Passing to the south of Long Island at a minimum distance of 20 miles. Then enter the Sandy Hook pilot station, marking the traditional end of a transatlantic passage. From there under the Verrazano Bridge which our funnel will clear by approximately 4 metres, (Dee has advised we are not to miss) and then up to the Buttermilk Channel to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.
Basically re-creates how she was feeling
QB better but not recovered enough to continue the trip. we will head from the boat directly to Rhode Island.
Chilly,39 degrees, foggy. We are in the north Atlantic 😀
A real trooper. I was doing laps on the deck and 20 25 minutes later he was still there.
People Met:
Richard Ressman photosurgeon@gmail.com
http://www.photosurgeon.net
Richard Ressman, lives in Los Gatos (or Altos), retired
And
Colleen Wilcox
Www.colleenwilcoxsculpture.com
She: retired from santa clara county school management and now on the board of the Commodore Club. Gets to travel widely with them and Richard, retired ortho surgeon and active in the Commodore club where they me. Lots of info about the club and its activities.
Both very interesting and engaged in the world. Foodies too.
Hot tub temporary buds.
American, 15 years taking care of elderly mother, now on a travel binge. Savoy in London – loved it at 2500 pds/night. Best hotel ever. Hires guides and drivers everywhere. See everything. First time out of the US country,
English couple, mid 30s, Hampshire. No interest in Brit or American politics. Not following. Biden fell off bike. Brexit did not matter. Like their garden and renovated house. Posh accent. Here with family group of 8.
Gala Night tonight, need to put on finest.
QB much better but still with exhausted mitochondria
Rough sea night promised but did occur.
Not a good day, especially for QB. Last evening before going to bed she started to have a sore throat, coughing and sneezing. By the middle of the night she had trouble breathing and had to contact her doctor. Drugs were prescribed, her traveling pharmacy is quite complete. She got little sleep last night. As of this writing, she is trying to go to sleep after having a light breakfast sent to the room.
Did a Covid test in the early afternoon and fortunately, that was negative.
Sailed to the north of the Milne Seamounts. An underwater volcanic mountain range within the Newfoundland plains, an area of very deep and relatively uniform seabed off the coast of the continental shelf. We passed over the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, where the water rapidly shallows from over 3,000 metres (9,850 feet) to less than 60 metres (200 feet) in parts.
The Grand Banks form part of the continental shelf extending from Newfoundland and
North America into the Atlantic.
A bit bracing in windy 40 degree weather.
Dinner: no QB quite unwell
QB’s portion – to the room. Suffering quite a bit. Never left the room today.
dee got me thinking about my comments disparaging the quality of the food on this voyage
It’s not the quality but the lack of creativity or effort the kitchen takes. virtually all of our friends are good cooks. None which serve food without the addition of, onions, garlic, hens, seasonings etc The kitchen seems to try and get around this by making sauces.
clearly, they have been many exceptions. tonight‘s couscous was excellent. The dishes, lacking creativity has been the basic proteins, chicken, fish, and pork, unseasoned and sauce heavy.
Yes, of course, they are cooking for the expected demographic on this ship.
A bit calmer sea.
Breakfast like most of the meals was not impressive. Naturally the poached eggs were fine and the berries are surprisingly good pancakes not so much.mediocre coffee, not hot. yesterday’s oatmeal will not be repeated. Ordered pumpernickel bread and got multigrain – when I mentioned this, they said this is what we call pumpernickel. Service remains excellent and friendly.
Today we will complete sailing over the Mid Atlantic ridge. This is a series of large undersea mountain ranges extending all the way from Iceland in the Northern Hemisphere down towards Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere. Here, depths can shallow out to less than 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) before deepening again quickly to over 3,500 metres (11,500 feet). It generally runs equidistant between the continents either side of the Atlantic. The ridge is growing and is estimated to be spreading by between 2-5cm per year in an east-west direction.
Beaufort scale 2 allowed a coolish walk, laps around deck. By noon four on the scale and captain said eight tonight.
An observation: the staff on the boat is remarkably diverse. The passengers are not; the passengers are all older white like us while the staff is from many countries, we haven’t yet met any staff that we think are from North America. North America is big.
Disappointingly, QB’s breathing was not good while we were doing laps. return to normal when we went back inside normal being good.
His partner a hiker having done many of the English paths as well as one in the alps. Unlike us, they are fully engaged with stuff: spin class, lectures, wine tasting and that is just before noon today. They will spend one night in Newport after this trip.
Met a round tripper: on in London and then off if London. Just a few hours in brooklyn.
Visit to cruise desk to find out about choices and details for an August 2026 eclipse voyage. One in Northern spain safest for cloudless viewing. Bought a refundable option, most of rooms already sold out.
Osmond lobster, by Osmand.
I ordered some Iberico pork tenderloin just to be safe.
Rough sea tonight.
Early morning so we can have breakfast in the dining room
As we continue our voyage across the Atlantic, we pass over abyssal plains and basins. The Rockall Basin has features named after the Lord of the Rings, such as Gondor Seamount and Isengard Ridge. Oceanic plains are more common in the Atlantic than any other ocean. These abyssal plains are formed by sediment accumulating in depressions, thus smoothing out the seabed. Queen Mary 2 will cross the Porcupine Abyssal Plain and make her way towards an area of the Atlantic known as the Faraday Fracture Zone.
Rock and roll night – about normal for this time of year according to the crew. No way to do my morning balance exercises.
Started heading for a circumnavigation on the walking deck. Nope, all doors closed. Someone said force 10 wind, having some doubts , looked up the beaufort scale, it appears to be force 6-7; of course larger apparent wind as ship is moving at 20plus knots so closer to 8.
With the failure of the planetarium, we looked to see if there was anything we could go to. Found one. A watercolor class for QB, I went along as the muscle
When we got there, the instructor pointed out this was the intermediate class and then we should come back if we wanted to 10 in the morning and managed to say it in such a rude and nasty manner that we just walked away from him. the ship program said introductory.
So, lots of unstructured time.
He sits at adjoining table and is loud enough for everyone to hear
Clock set back one hour. GPS does not pick up the correct time zone so you have to reset it to GMT time manually.
After dropping the pilot in the late evening, Queen Mary 2 enters the English Channel, where she will set a west-south-westerly course paralleling the southern English coast. Queen Mary 2 passed south of the Bill of Portland and Start Point.
As we leave the English Channel, we will be to the south of Bishop Rock, marking the traditional start of our transatlantic passage towards our destination of New York. The English Channel is considered the busiest shipping channel in the world, with more than 500 vessels transiting the channel every day.
Alas, no planetarium.
Started our return to the gym. This gym does not have lockers, locker room or shower, but you can get access to those amenities for only $59 a day. The shower in the room is just fine.
Gala dress for dinner required tonight. Gowns out cocktail dresses; suit and tie for men.
I had a long discussion with the headwaiter about what salt free dining means. He took it to heart. He explained that salt free usually is they just not adding salt I explained that was not my concept. Dinner took a long time because I had ordered a lobster tail, but I got this instead.
Truly, an outstanding dish. Then Armond came over and said he would cook for us at the table, he will make lobster osmand, his own concoction; as I’ve already pre-ordered for Tuesday he will do this Wednesday.
10 seconds of listening to the music and we decided it was not for us. Nice watching the others dance.
Exercise summary for the day: QB climbed 17 flights of stairs today and her watch registered at six.  It’s because she’s partially helium. 
Hotel lobby was a virtual madhouse with many ships boarding around the same time and an early check out of 11 AM. If you stayed past 11 AM they started charging you 25 pounds an hour. Odd policy for five star hotel. no late checkout. 
Hotel provided shuttle to the boat. Of course Pre-booked.
Very easy check-in, fabulous room (shout out to Kathy). Nothing like a Regant Cruise in that this place seems to nickel and dime everything. Even use of the spa you had to buy day passes or trip passes as well as Internet. coffee in some places, not even a glass of wine at dinner. I’m not sure what else yet. However, none of this comes as a surprise as the fabulous Kathy explained this in advance. Just not my view of good marketing.
Gave me a menu for no salt dinner; time will tell but room service has been outstanding.
Dinner: sort of French service; one waitperson comes out changes the plates and gives me fresh silverware, two minutes later another waitperson comes out and takes away that fresh silverware and takes away the plates leaves me nothing and then soon they bring me more stuff.
Knives and forks keep coming and going
Cruise notes on people met to date:
Wheelchair bound, NHS project manager, mid-twenties, off on cruise to stay in staff quarters, sneaking in with girl friend on staff, testing if they can be together and become a couple rather than occasional “friends”
Artist recently departed from St Ives after 12 years of a good art community just wanting to show us her art as she is clearly displaced. He, 50 plus years as partner, Norwegian ?, Merck viral scientist, trying to kill virus’ inside cells, called halt to my questions as I was getting too close to his intelectual property.
Couple from Melbourne. Races horses, makes a living betting on horses. Carol and Harold.
—————
Southampton Common is the largest of Southampton’s open spaces with the first written record dating back to 1228 although it is possible that the area’s status as a common dates back to the town of Hamwic around 500AD.
The 365 acres of ‘The Common’ features woodland, rough grassland, ponds, wetlands, lakes and parkland.
One goal was to see the Hawthorn Urban Wildlife Center. Naturally, it is closed on Saturdays to keep the kiddies out. Cafe reported to be open
Two Pirates swagger into the Cowherd and demand “half pint ‘o’ Doom, barkeep! We’ll share.”
Notice the Doom in the pic. We first encountered doom bar when we walked Cornwall. The doom bar was where ships were marooned after being advised to come into the harbor that way. The locals then scavenge the ship
Tomorrow off to the ship.
Another gloomy day overcast and cool, a perfect day for a walk to the beach. With luck, the rain won’t start till later, with luck.
Breakfast at top of hotel has some nice views
From the marina across the Itchen rive to the old town of woolston chilly windy long bridge.
Woolston is a suburb of Southampton, located on the eastern bank of the River Itchen in Hampshire, England
It has a rich history dating back to the Anglo-Saxon era around 700 AD, with the name “Woolston” first appearing in 1180 in a charter
Town not prosperous but nice suburb.
Heading through the suburbs to Weston beach.
Path along the beach and a conversation with a local. River now cleaned up, 15 years ago you would come out with a third ear.
Very interesting double tidal river due to the intersecting tide from the isle of wight. When the two tides meet, daily, tide stops. Hence the King Canute (lóok it up if unknown) stopping the tide.
South eastern coast path
The Abby ruins
Cafe stop. Chilly, toasties had at five mile point
An amenity: Brit style
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