DAY 15, 16, 17 AND BEYOND!

Just a quick update to let you know we are still alive and breathing, just barely, in my case. I have caught a cold and have spent most of the time on the ship sleeping to try to shake it off. When I'm feeling better and we are at sea again, I'll catch up gradually. Since six of the last seven days are at sea, I should be able to catch up before we land in New York.

The port call at Kristiansand, Norway on Wednesday (Day 15) was canceled because we needed to beat the remnants of tropical storm Leslie and hurricane Michael to Scotland. Otherwise we would have been going right into the teeth of the storm. It was very rough anyway (8-12 foot waves and 40 knot winds) and Karen lost her cookies (and several other morsels) at one point. I managed to survive the rough seas, but didn't escape the cold germ. So we were at sea for two days and arrived at Glasgow, Scotland late in the evening yesterday (Thursday).

Today we had an excursion (in the afternoon, thankfully) to Loch Lomond, which was quite beautiful, but our loch, I mean, luck ran out on the weather, cold and rainy. At the quaint village of Luss, with quaint houses, quaint tea shops, quaint WC's, and quaint parking lot for tour buses, we had a great view of the Loch. As I walked out to the end of the pier, I noticed something moving in the water that had three humps AND I REALIZED THAT I WAS SEEING THE... No, wait, that is a different loch. I really messed that up didn't I? You could call me the Loch Mess Punster...

Check back in a few days. In the meantime, pray for a miracle cure for the common cold! And keep Karen safe from it!

Jim