Early arrival to beautiful weather. Costa Deliziosa moored in front of us and Artemisa behind. Stayed warm and sunny all day, quite humid. Because of the travel advisory placed in cabins a couple of nights ago, everyone left the ship sans jewellery and in some cases, watches. The six of us took the shuttle to the Casa de Cultura, which is a converted prison. We then negotiated a six seater cab to take us to Olinda (the colonial capital), where we saw so...

We crossed the Equator at 03:05 this morning. Gloriously sunny day. Laid on the back deck for a couple of hours in the morning. Men are keeping the lead in BoS. There are lots of white sea birds with yellow beaks flying round the ship. When the midday bridge announcement was made he said 'many of you have been asking what the sea birds are. To be honest, we don't know'! So I'm none the wiser as to what they are, although we think they're gannets. Th...