30th December, a Day at Sea

Today started badly, we couldn’t raise room service for our daily ritual, a cup of tea in bed and also, watching the daily program on TV I heard the lecture that I wanted to go to was at 0900hrs, ouch!!! Add to that Christie wasn’t still herself so not a good start, and oh yes, at 1015hrs was our second boat drill.

We made breakfast OK and Christine kept it light, just fruit. We got back to our cabin just in time for me to go the lecture; unfortunately all Christine did was flop on the bed. Now being the caring husband I am I offered to stay but she said no, you go; I didn’t offer a second chance though.

Again another superb lecture about Pirates, Privateers, and Buccaneers attacking the Spanish fleets which much of the talk being about Sir Francis Drake. It was very interesting how the Spanish organised their plunder from central and southern America, consolidated in Hispaniola now Cuba, and transported it back to Servile in Spain. Though on the transatlantic they were easy targets, they defended their booty well and not as many ships, as were brought up to believe, suffered. It was during the consolidation period where most of the plunder took place, well according to our knowledgeable lecturer.

I rushed back to the cabin to collect Christine for boat drill and found her in a sorry state; she was in bed, had been sick, had a terrible head ache and generally felt sh1t. Now boat drill is compulsory so we had no option but to go, fortunately today’s drill didn’t involve standing on deck, only at our muster station in the grand lounge. As soon as it was over we were first out and she was back in bed. At this stage things weren’t too bad, so I went off to play cribbage with another couple from Canada and when I got back to the cabin, things were not good, her hands and feet had pins and needles, generally lethargic etc., etc., The medical centre was not open so Reception paged the nurse and after describing the symptoms she organised a wheel chair to collect Christine, take her to the ships medical centre for tests. They wired her up to all sorts of machinery did a number of tests, put her on several drips and kept on investigating. The nurse told me to go and eat as Christine was in for the next hour or so being monitored. Apparently her potassium was very very low, and she was dehydrated.

After a snack lunch I returned and after a short time they discharged her arranged a wheel chair to return her to our cabin, told to go to bed and they will see her tomorrow at 1800hrs, me on the other hand, I was asked to report to the centre at 0900hrs, I think this is for the presentation of an almighty bill.

We had a quiet and early night, hoping Christine is better tomorrow, New Years Eve in Bridgeton, Barbados.

 

This entry was posted in At Sea. Bookmark the permalink.