We get settled in to life on board the Silver Wind
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| The cabin seemed, fine but it was not the Owners Suite | The padre does not do butlers, but he looked after us | Even sent us a little card and some toweling animals | We ordered a few bottles of booze to keep us going |
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| We met up again with Florandy | We sat in the front row on the Venetian Night with a glass | We think the whole crew turned out to wish us goodbye | This is the fellow in the bar who you need to keep in with |
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| ..he brings us the drinks and canapés, and more if madre lets us | The butler thought it was our aniversery and brought us a cake | The captain thought he crossed the Arctic Circle, so certificates | And bad weather crossing back to UK from Iceland |
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| We always keep in with Pia, as she supplies the buns | We invited the Captain to join us one night. He was impressed | Happily few of the other bears found Afternoon Tea | This is the Butler on his afternoon off |
Dublin
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| The Gresham in Dublin was not up to our high standards | This horse was in the hotel lobby. Odd place to leave a horse | This is us with James Joyce. We have no idea who he is | The Padre's great Grandfather ran this church in Abbey Street |
Mull
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| We went ashore at Duart Castle on Mull | The sun was shining, odd for Scotland, and it looked OK | But once there they locked us up. We had not had time to be bad | .Anyway they led us out after we promised to be good. |
St Kilda
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| Strange place St Kilda. Inhabited by mangy sheep .. | ..and a boatload of spies who are kept warm with this diesel | All the houses seem to have fallen down, and the people have .. | ..left, which is not surprising given the climate here |
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| The madre was really proud to have cross this raging torrent | Then we found a gun. We were going to sink the ship with it .. | ..but there was no ammunition, so we had to shelve that idea | Messy birds are these Guillemots |
Djupivogur Iceland
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| You do not want to even try to pronounce Icelandic names. | This was our suitably large Super Jeep. You can hardly see .. | us. It was cold and raining at the start | But brightened up when we got to the waterfalls |
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| We pondered over an abandoned cottage | The jeep was fun as it splashed through rivers | We saw lots of waterfalls | And had to help the padre on occasions to cross rocks |
Tumavik,Iceland
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| It was a difficult landing from our Zodiac onto the op[pen beach. | Anyway we scrambled ashore, and found this man singing | Straight after that we had to make the precarious trip back | Later that day we saw these old stones in the distance |
Hofsos & Dragney
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| We passed on the "fermented shark". We prefer buns | No idea how to pronounce that word, nor why it is there | This fellow looked happy | We gave the museum a miss and sat outside |
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| Now that is Dragney, our next adventure on the horizon | That is the only landing place | The madre was a little frightened but we helped her up | A brief pause at the emergency house at the top |
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| Shows you how difficult it was to get here. It is a long way down | We posed for a family photo | And thee were a lot of (hungry) Puffins on the island | Then we had to get the old girl back down |
Djupavik.Iceland
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| We went on the Medium Walk as we did not want to overtax her. | It was just a stroll though bogs and .. | ..across rivers, in order to get back to .. | ..where we had started - an abandoned fish processing factory |
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| The place was so remote and in such a shocking state of .. | ..repair, that we are not surprised that it was abandoned. The .. | ..machines were really antiquated. But the were cakes at the end | . We wondered if we would be sick if we ate the lot |
Husavik, Iceland
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| Husavik is the "whale watching capital" of Iceland. So we signed | up for a whale watching trip. The boat was overloaded with .. | ..punters, all in fancy dress | We found a quiet spot on the back of the boat |
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| The guide got very excited about whale poo and tried to catch it | There were distant whales. There she blows. | But the padre had the benefit of a ..telephoto lens. These . | ..whales we just dots on the horizon to us .Give us tigers any day |
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| Another museum. We are not keen on museums, but this was .. | quite good. This is a life size whale's heart | And this is a whale's skeleton. | We could not find a driver, so we drove ourselves back to ship |
Vok Baths
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| We usually try to avoid baths, they get the fur wet and soggy. | But we found little island in the middle of the spa baths | We wandered round the outside. And looked after the padre | ..after he had inexplicably jumped into the icy lake |
Seydisfjordur, Iceland
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| Seydisfjordur is not a name to be trifled with | It had rather a "gay" main street | We took the padres up to an interesting waterfall | And stopped at this little shop for a chat to the (Italian) owner |
Iona, Scotland
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| We knew it would rain, we told them it would rain. This is .. | Scotland. The only dry place was inside the abbey, which, | unusually for these sorts of places did actually have a roof | The back into the Scottish summer and more rain |
Belfast, Northern Ireland
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| We arrive in Belfast. Opposite Titanic museum | That is the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge down there | And this pile of old stones is Dunluce Castle. | The boyzz got in the easy way, via back pack. |
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| A photo op where the draw bridge used to be | We were glad that it was sunny as there was no roof. | Then a stop for a middle of the road lunch | We inspected the Royal Portrush golf course |
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| And went on to visit the Giants Causeway. We did not see .. | ..any giants, but they must have been big. This is his organ. | We admired the Irish sunshine with the madre | And returned to the ship via flag bedecked villages |
Dublin, Ireland
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| They are sending a lot of Guinness to England | Brown Thomas in Grafton Street. The madre shops here | We went to see Riverdance | It was quite a cheery Irish musical |
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| There were a lot of blokes in tight trousers on the stage | A walk along the Liffy | Coffee and cake at Dublin Castle | And back past the flowers outside Temple Bar pubs. |