Once again, life on ship is all about staying upright and many activities have been cancelled due to the constant pitching and rolling, and the Lido Lounge is closed until further notice meaning food has to be consumed in the Dining Room or ordered through cabin service. The Captain had brought his farewell cocktail party forward to today (from Thursday) in advance of the anticipated bad weather, but as the bad weather has hit early, it, too, has been postponed. My workshop on composition went ahead, even though everything slid around, and with the drop in attendance (I think most people are just staying holed-up in their cabins), I'm a little worried that I won't get all those people who have attended classes up until now to cough up their paintings in time for our exhibition on Friday. We'll see.

It isn't cold on deck but it is windy, and the forcast is for the wind to increase considerably over the next few hours and the swell to become more intense - winds of 40 - 50 knots and waves of 3-5 meters high. I'm not entirely sure of the correlation between these statistics and the storm-force number, but we're currently in a force 7-8, expected to rise to a 9-10 this evening. The captain's idea of yesterday (heading due North to catch the tail-end of the storm) has been abandoned simply because the storm has picked up speed, and now we're sailing approximately 100 miles West of the coast of Portugal. Word is that the weather in the Bay of Biscay is calm; we just have to get through the storm coming in from the North West.

Captain Alistair McLundy always gives the impression of being a very calm man. Apparently his wife was heard to say the other day at dinner that his passive exterior often belies the stress he's under, and only lets that really show in private. With the ship rocking and rolling as it is, his voice is always reassuring and in control. I keep waiting for him, during one of his lunchtime addresses, when the ship is lurching about, to suddenly cry out "Woo Hoooo! That was a big one! I did'nae see that comin'!"