That was the shock announcement that greeted us from the Captain this morning! A serious incident at the entrance to the canal has caused its closure and it is believed it will be closed for a week. He was awaiting instructions from P&O Head Office as to what action would be taken and would notify us as soon as possible. Around South America again? The North West Passage? Sit it out in Panama? All of us flown home from San Diego and the cruise curtai...

Up fairly early and Bob went off to pick up the hire car from Hertz for our trip to Napa. Two friends from the ship, Maureen and Mick, were coming with us. It was a lovely day again. Bright sunshine, warm and no wind. T shirt weather without being hot. We headed off across the Golden Gate Bridge which was spectacular in the morning sunshine. Past Sausalito and into the hills and up to the Russian River area of Napa for our first call at the Iron Hors...

Not a very good night's sleep. I think I was stressed thinking about Lulu's flat purchase maybe falling through. Anyway, woke up with the alarm at 730 and we were already on the dock at Pier 35, San Francisco. An absolutely brilliantly blue sky and warm sun. Maybe about 21C, so perfect sightseeing weather. We had breakfast and then set off to walk to Fisherman's Wharf, not very far, perhaps 15 minutes. We wanted to locate Hertz for tomorrow and also to ...

Our last sea day before San Francisco and it was a bright if rather chilly one. Maybe 15C but bright sunny skies. I did see some people sunbathing by the pool but they were braver and obviously more desperate than me! We got up late to the news that Lucy's flat purchase is looking a bit dicey after drifting on now for about 5 months. Very much fingers crossed that it doesn't collapse at this point but it's not looking particularly good. Gutting really....

Another day at sea heading north east towards San Francisco. Temperature down again to 17C today but very still. Sunny enough to sit out in a t shirt and read which we did for a bit. Actually we were terribly late up! Didn't actually wake up till 0930. Just amazing…… Bob went off to a lecture on the life of Turing and I went up to the Crow's Nest to read. Sat there till 12 when we had lunch. My reading was interrupted by an Australian woman who came...