The Amazon Blog 13 - you know the sea is not a very, very big thing - no - it's even bigger

Other than 4 miles down the nearest mainland is now 1,000 east or 1,000 miles east. That's quite a long way. Quite a long way in the same sense as the woman this morning who announced as she stepped on deck, to no one in particular, that it was quite warm. In fact it was damnably hot and humid and the sea goes on for a damnably long way. The air conditioning inside the ship is kept at a steady warm temperature - step outside and the heat and humidity hit you causing you to struggle for breath. It was 87 degrees at 5:30 this morning. Attempts to photograph the Sooty Petrel that had come aboard in the night were thwarted by condensation running down the lens.

A steady swell from the north, waves 200 feet apart and only 10 feet tall, caused the ship to roll continuously. Nothing severe but rolling through 20 degrees every 10 seconds. A number of passengers have found the slope on deck difficult to negotiate making overtaking manoeuvres on the promenade deck tricky so say the least. The trick was to spot a slightly wider section of deck and then accelerate around the slower walker. The movement of the ship added risk. The less steady walkers would tend to follow the roll and sidestep down the slope of the deck. Unsteadiness in these walkers is found amongst the frail and the obese. For the former there was concern for their well being, the latter threatened the overtaker. Rounding the bow to walk down the port side and imminent disaster was lurking on the deck. Madame Chateau, a thinly elegant lady whose pace was graceful and deceptively quick was about to navigate around Mrs Audrey Dipose, a Rubenesque figure who had rather 'let herself go' and the ship began to roll. Madame pulled out ready to make her move, failed to take account of the roll, accelerated and pulled alongside when the roll to starboard brought Mrs Dipose out of equilibrium. She staggered to her left, Madame tried to side step. Mrs Dipose lurched further to the left, her centre of gravity precariously over her left foot. Madame nimbly hurdled the foot of a sun lounger. For a moment they were poised, the number 10, Madame the 1 and Audrey the O. A shudder from the ship and Audrey stumbled to her left only the wall to save her and only Madame to pad the collision. Madame disappeared completely, Audrey bounced back to her right and headed for the rail as the ship rolled to port. A few seconds later a door opened and Madame's head appeared somewhat furtively to see if the coast was clear. If the door had not been there and open at the precise moment of potential impact the consequences would have been appalling.