This evening the Captain held his Farewell Cocktail Party. I'd have attended more of them if I'd known there was so much free champagne flowing! He paid tribute to his crew and staff, and awarded the employee of the month to various folks who had been outstanding in their posts.

After the cocktail party came Dinner Time. It was our final, farewell dinner, and I expected to be making my final post tonight a short and sweet, wrap-it-up sort of thing; not really expecting there to be much more to write home about.

Not so.

Towards the end of the meal, a most extraordinary thing happened. After a whole day of relatively calm weather and good, straight-forward sailing, the boat started to roll over to starboard. Bearing in mind we've been through some pretty rough weather, with extremely choppy seas, over the last week or so - something that I've grown a strange sort of fondness for - this was rather unexpected. Not only that; having listed over to quite an alarming angle of 15 - 20 degrees - it stayed like that. The wierd thing is that, when this thing happens in rough weather, a roll to one side is always followed some time afterwards by a roll to other side, and so it goes. This felt altogether different.

The reaction from passengers was split rather evenly down the middle. There were those whose unfailing confidence in the Captain and the vessel came through as bravado and 'hey, this is fun - lets make a joke out of it', whilst others glanced across and exchanged glances with like-minded folks who seemed to realise that this was not a laughing matter, and I swear a few faces drained of their healthy glow. To not put too fine a point on it - this was a bit of a brown-trousers moment!

Peter Fisher, sitting next to me, asked one of the waiters if he'd ever known anything like this before; he hadn't. To make things worse, every now and then the ship listed just a little bit more and the feeling in the pit of one's stomach took a peculiar turn. I didn't like this at all!

Eventually, the captain's voice came through the loudspeaker to tell us that the ship was listing heavily due to the fact that we'd had to make a 90-degree turn, the reason for which still remains a mystery, and the culmination of heavy winds and a high swell was pushing the ship over. He then explained that they were now trying to transfer all the fuel in the starboard side of the vessel over to the port side in an effort to stabalise it. This would take some time, and he asked for passengers to please bear with him, and ask for assistance if they need help to move from their chairs.

We remained in this awful, what seemed like a very vulnerable, position for almost an hour. The captain made a further address explaining that during the manouvre, they'd managed to stall one of the engines and were also currently in the process of trying to restart it. I kicked myself for not having my camera on me (on account of now being in civvies and not having enough pockets), but managed to take a couple of snapshots with my phone, of the extraordinary sight of people trying to walk along a steep incline.

For a moment there, I really did think we might be in serious trouble - I'll never joke about The Poseidon Adventure again - promise.

On that note, now we're in a more normal position, I'm off downstairs to the Polaris for one last drink and a few farewells. The day starts early in the morning, and I'm expecting to be in my car, on my way home, by about 9:30am.

I would just like to say a big thank you to all who have contributed along the way with your comments - once again I apologise for not having been able to reply to everyone, but have thoroughly enjoyed reading them. It's been an interesting 4 weeks to say the least, and I hope anyone out there who has read the blog has enjoying sharing those adventures with me.

Until the next time.

This is your intrepid sea-faring artist signing off.

Over and out.