A rainy day today with a few notable disappointments so far. The ship’s network connection has been down to varying degrees most of the morning. Lorna wanted badly to see the historical talks on the next two destinations but due to a cruise line app glitch, they rescheduled the sessions (into one at an earlier time)and we missed it/them. I was going to blog earlier, but persistently got a ‘no connection here’ message. Seems to be better now, I suspect that the rain has had an impact on satellite connections.

I saw a whale off to the side if the ship. Arc of back and a small dorsal fin. Not a big guy, but cool none the less. I didn’t get my camera ready in time though and aftwr that one i stood on the bow for some time but nothing else showed itself.

Had a great meal at Palo last night. I had a lobster pasta dish and Lorna had the beef. We both had the ‘order early’ souffle…Lorna had the chocolate and I tried a new option they offered with Amaretto flavoring. Both were delicious as expected.

Today should be a slow day. Rainy and grey with all day at sea. I did shove together a short set of perl scripts to clean up my backup hard drive to make sure I have space for a second copy of the photos from the remaining days of the cruise without losing anything that matters.

Probably a good thing that we’re having a down day. We manage to burn the candle at both ends even on a cruise 🙂 By this point we have both been dragging a bit for the last couple of days. I know my feet are feeling the constant use. Lorna’s arm is hurting a bit…wondering if just using it to assist on the stairs may have strained it.

Haven’t heard from Lys in a bit. Lorna’s data is expended and while I sent Lys a message to let her know that I’m the only contact point, I expect she’s busy with changing buildings to get ready to start ‘A’ school.

Just about noon, they just announced that they’ll sound noon with the ship’s tune.

Yesterday we passed a section of Orkney coastline with a large castle-like manor building and a very isolated looking light house. (There goes the noon whistle) I got some great shots as we passes and Lorna and I considered what it must be like to pass the winter in an isolated location in an already isolated set of islands.

We’re 15 miles west of Scotland. Travelled 240 nm at 13 knots.

The ship is rocking a bit today. Long low swells. The captain just mentioned that these are good conditions to look for dolphins and whales. I’ll probably head up to see if I can see anything shortly.

I saw stitch goofing with a toddler on the way up the stairs. He was clearly heading back for a rest so I didn’t go to grab Lorna. Very cute and I did get a couple of pictures along the way.

Waiting to see the tangled stage show at 2 pm

Left the quay to bagpipe music and Scottish dancers. Great time in the Orkneys and now headed to Palo for dinner.

Waiting to get a pic with Jiminy cricket first. Long line but we should get there.

At sea day tomorrow. Should be a quiet recharge day. Two talks by the historical lecturer tomorrow (he is at our table for dinner normally) should be interesting.

Today we had a short day with a morning walking tour of Kirkwall in the Orkneys and then dinner at Palo at seven tonight.

Our tour guide, Helen, was wonderful. She is a local archeologist and clearly knows the area, people and history very well.

It appears that the Vikings initially settled the area. The inlet that they harbored in is almost entirely gone with most of it filled for biulding space. There is a small, separated body of water left that you can see just before you reach the town.

Small town, narrow (and dual pedestrian/car use) streets in no particular organization. Every so often we went down an alley where cars could arrive at any time and we had to get back and out of their path.

Early on we found out that ‘bridge street’ once had a bridge on it. Long ago the stream that the bridge crossed was completely covered over with streets and buildings. We did see a manhole cover that supposedly provides access to the now subterranean stream flowing under the town.

Long ago, the bishop of the island(s) built a small manor/castle in the upper half of town. Later an earl decided to build another castle near the seafront. Legend has it that he did not get permission, he just shrugged and said that the Bishop already had a castle in the upper part of town so he had the right to build his own castle. He biult the new fortification on a spit of land rising above the water level in the harbor. We were pointed at the spot where the castle once existed (some sort of shop or business) as the castle is long gone.

It appears that those who supported the bishops (and those who have lived in the upper part of town ever since) have had a rivalry with the Earl’s men in the lower section of the place. Uppers and doonies I think…apparrently the scottish character on the simpsons hails from the lower part of town.

In mid winter the town has a no rules, no holds barred football/rugby game where the down folks and the up folks try to get the ball to the other end of town. Apparrently in one recent year, one of the town folk stretched the no rules rule close to the breaking point by using a car to get the ball where it needed to go.

We saw the town cathedral. I appears that the cathedral is the northernmost cathedral in Britain. Interesting to see the variety of construction styles and materials that were used over the vast amount of time it took to finish construction.

In the early days, they buried people in shallow graves inside the cathedral. By the end of the era when this was practiced, the place was supposedly more than a bit foetid. Eventually, the dead bodies were cleared out and reburied outside and their grave markers placed along the inside walls.

The cathedral is named after one of a pair of brothers who were the sons of the ruler (at that time) of the island(s). The other brother was warline while Magnus appears to have been a pacifist. Things ended as you might expect at the time with the nastier brother having one of his men bury an axe in the saintly brother’s skull.

Magnus and his nephew (who returned and claimed the earldom later on) were both proclaimed as saints and their bones are interred in the walls of the cathedral.

This cathedral also has a torture dungeon (since retired) that is apparrently designed to be extremely uncomfortable for anyone interred within (sounds much like an oubliette) that was used during the British version of the witch trials.

Across the street from the cathedral we saw the ruins of the Bishop’s hall. Nothing much is left aside from the stone walls today.

As we headed there we saw that there was a murder of crows nesting in the tree above the door into the ruin. Always nice to run across a batch of friendly corvids…

Across the street (other street) from the Bishop’s hall is the ruins of the evil and paranoid Earl Patrick Stewart. His father was appointed earl of the islands by his good friend the king. His son was by all accounts a rather nasty sort. He certainly had enough firing ports for guns of the era built into his residence. He booted the Bishop out and used the Bishop’s hall as an extension of the Earl’s residence. In the end, the earl was executed for treason. Probably pissed off the wrong noble who had the king’s ear. He did grab one extra week of life by claiming that he was so steeped in evil that he had to have a week to learn the lord’s prayer so he could go to the afterlife in peace (clever dodge, but only one week).

It is believed that the shell of his castle is so well preserved because those who would otherwise have stolen the sotnes from the walls left them in place to avoid using cursed stones in a dwelling.

In the end, the Nordic hold on the islands was broken when the Swedish king needed bride price to marry off one of his daughters and pawned the islands to the Scottish king for a pile of cash. He was unable to ever pay the money back and eventually the islands became a formal part of the kingdom. According to our guide, the residents of the Orkneys are also proud of the fact that when he later pawned the Shetland Islands (and eventually lost these as well) he got a much lower price for them.

We ate lunch in a local place (Real Food cafe, recommended by our tour guide). Lorna is now officially addicted to ‘toasties’ and had a yummy ham and orkney cheese toasted sandwich (crisp on the outside, soft on the inside). She also tried bannock which is effectively a dry, non-sweet oat cake with powdered sugar on top and butter to struggle with the spreading of. One bite and I got to finish the rest. I had a local plowman’s sampler platter. Nice cheese and meats. A few greens and more oat wafers. Not s fan of the baked oat goods.

We just pulled up in the Orkneys. Our porthole is right at pier level so anyone we can see can see us too 🙂 Heading out shortly, short excursion day and then we’ll take some down time and go to Palo for dinner (yay).

Grey day out there at the moment. I suspect that is pretty common up here though.

Oh, forgot yesterday…we also stopped at a town and had an hour and a half to roam around. Not all that much to see. Pretty town. Looked for a place to get lunch and failed to find the first place we chose (looked as if it may have been closed). Wound up getting a pointer to a tea room attched to the local museum from a man handing out fliers on the street corner. Strange little museum, heavy on the taxidermy including one tableau of two seagulls. Lunch was not bad, but not great. Lorna had a BLT toasty and Ihad a baked potato slathered with chicken curry-like stuff…and of course tea 🙂 As with every place we’ve eaten off-ship service was slow.

Last night I ended up blogging from the coffe lounge on deck 9. In the other end of the place there was some sort of scotch tasting lesson going on. Seemed as if there were more people around and about late last night than the previous as all of the decent spots to settle down and type on the lower decks were occupied. Outside on the open decks was not an option as it was very cold and windy. Not all that dark though, seems as if the light stays in the sky far later than I’m used to up here…ten or ten thirty and there’s still a glow. I’m guessing perhaps we’re that far north.

We landed in Invergordon today and headed out for a couple of castles and a bus ride through the countryside of Scotland.

It was an interesting ride, comfortable bus and a near continuous stream of information from our guide. Very different countryside than I’m used to (with yellow flowered bushes everywhere…can’t be certain, but I want to say gorse).

Amazingly narrow roads again. Sometimes it seemed as if the bus wasn’t going to make it past the traffic in the other lane. A few times we slowed or stopped to allow the other traffic room to get by. At least a couple of one lane bridges on the route as well.

First stop was Cawdor castle. This is a residence castle with the owner living there for much of the year. Appears that during the tourist season she moves elsewhere and opens her home to the public. My impression is that this provides significant tax advantages and likely makes is more practical/possible for her to remain in the property for the remaining months of the year.

The castle was much more lived in and livable feeling than the other such large places I’ve seen. Clearly a mix of very old and newer architecture with an eclectic assortment of art pieces inside and in the gardens.

According to our guide, the story of the creation of the castle had the founder letting a donkey loose, laden down with gold (no idea why gold, but) and when the wandering ass eventually settled down, the location of the castle was set. According to the legend, the critter plopped down under a thorn tree (seems to have meant a holly tree) and in the center of the castle there is still the remains (trunk of a dead tree) suspended in a dark room to prove the point.

Flash photography was not allowed, but I don’t generally shoot with flash if I can avoid it. I took pictures throughout and will post-process and post once I get home.

The grounds had several garden areas that were very pretty with art pieces distributed throughout.

The first garden we entered had a hedge maze at its heart. According to the information provided, they planted holly as the borders of the hedge maze without checking whether holly bushes could tolerate having their roots walked on regularly. It turns out that they cannot and so we could look at the outside of the maze but the public was not permitted inside.

The other garden we roamed around waqs more open and had a wider range of flowers. A beautiful bird feeder modelled on twining vines (cast in bronze) supporting a golden sphere with leaf shaped feeding scoops attached to the sides.

I played with my macro lens a bit in this area. Lots of flowers to shoot and a slightly drizzly day to add a few glistening droplets to the petals. I’ve imported the shots into lightroom at this point but have not really taken a serious look at them.

The other destination for the day was a ruined castle on the edge of Loch Ness. It was very crowded when we arrived but the Disney tour guide escorted us right in (nice perk of Disney). As we waited for the short historical presentation, Lorna and I realized that Cawdor (the previous castle) was mentioned in Macbeth. In the beginning of the Scottish play, Macbeth is made thane of Cawdor in place of its previous thane by the king. This starts the cascade of greed, ambition and murder that drives the play. Interesting resonances.

The castle ruin by the loch met its current devastated state when a group of Jacobite soldiers arrived at the the castle and left because they could not take the place. For some unfathomable reason, history indicates that after the attackers were thwarted in their ambitions to take the place by storm, the defenders blew up the gate house and fled. Curious that the brave Scots decided that the castle was not worth defending, but that it was still valuable enough that they had to destroy it before leaving.

While up in the ruins, we saw nessie in the loch…at least a small bright green nessie being towed behind a group of canoes. Pictures to come later…

Once again Lorna enjoyed seeing the sheep, cows and horses along the way (and saw a bunny along the way).

On the way out from the port we had someone almost lef tbehind. As we headed up to the deck to wath the departure festivities they paged a couple of folks over the address system. Looks as if one was just missed getting on board…the other had the opportunity to sprint the (rather long) length of the dock to avoid being left behind. No idea why he was late, but he made no friends in the crew when he tried to high five various folks as he reached the gangway up to the ship.

There was a large group of bag pipers seeing us off. Fewer folks along the shore than at NewCastle, but it was a rather cold day and I believe that Invergordon is a small place. There were herds of sheep up on the headland as we passed back out to the open sea that were running back and forth as I took telephoto shots.

At the stern we were saluted out of the firth by a fire fighting ship spraying water into the air. Seemed like a festive time all around, fun for us and a good boost for a rather troubled economy in the area.

Tomorrow we’re on to the Orkneys.

Grey morning. Getting ready to head out.

Not sure that much will come from the fog pics. There was light in the fog, but it was diffuse and grey…looked like twilight even though it is 11 PM here.

While I was up there (and it was very windy) I noticed (heard more than saw initiailly) a weld that had broken on the railing where the tempered glass panels are attached. A 2 1/2 foot square panel of tempered glass had one corner flapping a couple inches back and forth. Told the crew (guest services). Not sure whether they’ll do anything tonight, but seemed worth a quick head’s up. If the panel goes, the mess will be much bigger than if they secure it first.

It still blows my mind to be able to write a blog entry that anyone interested can read while sitting aboard an 85,000 ton ship plowing through a foggy evening on the north sea.

We just had a great meal in the animator’s palette. Good food and I really liked the effects better than those on the newer Dream. They were more subtle, but still grabbed me and dragged me in. If there’s ever an advertisement for the imagineering team, events like that are it.

I’m heading up on deck to see what the foggy evening does to the ship’s lighting on deck. I’m hoping that the fog and the colored lights will make for some great shots. Won’t really know till I get home and get them on the good monitor. Once I have them post processed and am back on a reasonably large pipe, I’ll post whatever seems worth sharing.

The sketches that emerged on the screens during the meal also remided me that need to get my Intuos tablet out and try to take my rather feeble drawing skills to a better place. I’d love to be able to sketch competently…so far I’ve always found more important things to do but I think the time has come to find the time.

Just got back from our outing in the Newcastle area. Took a bus from the royal quay in Tyne and roamed around for a while with the guide describing everything from the local council flats to various remnants of Hadrian’s wall. Stopped at lunch time in BlancSomething where there had been an abbey (where the monks all wore white) long ago. At this point it seems to be a nice, small tourist destination with a little hotel and a few other estblishments. It was an interesting drive in as we were on a full sized tour bus and the roads were not wide enough for anything to pass on the other side. At least once a car approacing frrom the other direction had to back up until we found a spot where they could creep past.

Lorna got to see many, many sheep but onlly from a long distance behind walls (and she said barbed wire). She was also upset that folks up here raise sheep for meat more than wool. Sheep are friends not food.

We had a nice tea and sandwiches lunch at a small eating place in the town, Lorna had a ham and white bread (real country white she says) sandwich with the best scone with whipped cream and jam she’s had in England so far. Lorna notes that the little old church in the village sure as hell smelled ancient. I have pictures, but after burning 100 MB posting pics yesterday, the rest will keep until I’m home.

I grabbed some macro shots of very nice flowers that I’ll post once I have a bigger net link.

Back at the ship by 2:15. I’m going to pull my shots off of the camera chips to my storage drives and get batteries recharging.

As we got back to the ship, a group of local dignitaries was heading out. Looks like they gave them a tour of the ship and lunch with the captain. I expect that the Disney visits will also be a nice boost to the local economy.

I took quite a few shots out the windows of the bus with my little camera. I’m not at all confident that any of these will work out, but it seemed work a try. Not something Ido often enough to have a solid feeling about.

On the Disney Magic and having a great time!

Currently we’re nearing the end of our first day at sea on the Magic. Today was an ‘at sea’ day and relatively quiet. The weather has been excellent. We had a chocolate and wine tasting this morning. Fun, interesting and tasty.

We’ve been meeting folks on the cruise this time. I guess we’re becoming a bit more gregarious this time around. We grabbed dinner with a number of folks who had been on the pre-cruise facebook group and have seen several of them around the ship since then.

So far I’ve taken a few pictures, mostly sunrise and ships on the horizon (and a bunch from Dover and London before we sailed out). We saw a huge wind farm this morning while chatting with a couple we had met at the dinner and I grabbed a few shots of that. Currently my outgoing bandwidth is limited (pay per meg with a first level limit of 100 MB) so I’m going to keep the picture postings down until I get home.

I’m going to try to keep posting as things progress and may extend entries during the day as more happens.

Getting ready for formal-ish night tonight. We didn’t bring full formal wear as our weight and bags were limited in order to make getting here sane.

A few shots from the last few days in reduced size.

Deep in the castle ramparts

Beauty among the ancient stones

The view from our room in London 🙂