At last! Woke up to blue, sunny skies and a flat calm sea. We were about 250 miles SW of Cape Vincent which is the southern point of Portugal. It should be calm like this now until we reach the southern tip of South America and getting steadily warmer. Some people were swimming today and sunbathing but I think I'll reserve that till we leave Madeira.

The "usual" pattern of a sea day for us at the moment. Breakfast, then a bridge lesson, then Spanish. More pronunciation and the rest of the alphabet. Totally impossible growling rolling "Rs"!! And V is B. So Valparaiso is pronounced Balparaiso! H is always silent but J is sounded like H, so Jamon is Hamon… Yikes!

A good walk around the open decks for some exercise. So nice to feel the sun. Bit of lunch….. painting lesson this afternoon and then a film in the cinema. It was "Lucy" with Scarlett Johansson which was weird but not unenjoyable.

After dinner we went to see the ship's resident theatre company perform a show based on the music of Queen. They were absolutely terrific so looking forward to plenty more from them over the course of the trip. An earlier night than last night because we have to be up early for our arrival into Funchal, Madeira. We have pre-arranged a private tour with Happy Tours (hope they are well named) to see the Eastern part of the island which is supposedly very scenic.