Today we visited St. Johns in Antigua.

This was our final stop in the Caribbean before heading on towards Key West, the most southerly point in the United States of America. Unfortunately it was a short stop; arriving at 8am, and all-aboard by 12:15pm to sail at 1pm,

I woke early considering I'd had a relatively late night. After dinner, I had a pint in the Morning Light Pub, where Jeff Diamond, the guitarist/singer regularly performed. Over the last few days, he's been suffering with a chest infection, making singing very difficult for him, so he's been drafting in people to come up and do a song or two to his accompaniment, to help him out. I did my bit for him by agreeing to get up and sing Paul Simon's 'The Boxer', which seemed to go down well. This was followed by a comedy show in the Neptune Lounge and Dancing Under The Stars on the Aft Deck, which didn't look like it would get going at all due to very strong winds, but by 10:30, there was a decent turnout of folks willing to bop-til-they-drop. I'd pretty much had enough and was heading for bed at 11pm when they went and unveiled a late-night barbeque - one whiff, and I was well and truly hooked!

Before I could go into Antigua this morning, I had some final preparation and photocopying to do in the entertainments office for tomorrow's extra workshop. By the time I'd done all that, I had little over an hour and a half to take a shoreside meander, find something for the Red, White and Blue night tonight (I bought a light blue Antigua baseball cap - very fetching), and hunt out an internet cafe. many folks were complaining about the short stop, but I guess its just the way things have worked out.

Yet more partying on the Aft deck accompanied our departure from the island. Once more, the Rum punch flowed freely, but I avoided it on this occasion because I had a class to teach at 2pm. Several of my students didn't, however... thank goodness my regular students at least turn up sober... mostly

After what was to be my penultimate workshop (summer trees on a leafy lane), I headed upstairs to catch the Passenger Talent Show, which was pretty good - out of 950 passengers, though, only 6 had come forward to entertain us; 4 singers, a comedian and a bloke who played the spoons (extremely well, it has to be said). My hats go off to the Braemar Orchestra who have to accompany the singers; the last bloke up sang Frank Sinatra's 'My Way', in something that can only be described as flexi-timing... absolutely well done to the orchestra for keeping up with him when his singing obviously didn't match up to the dots, and for making the little transitory hiccoughs smooth and apparently seemless.

Tonight it's Red, White and Blue Night, so that'll be fun. Pretty much all cruises have theme nights; British Night (R, W & B), Country & Western Night and Tropical Night are firm favourites on trips to this area. The Palm Cafe has had themed food nights too: we've had Curry Night, and the other evening it was Chinese Buffet. Generally speaking, I have to say that the food is good, although sometimes it seems to have a particular 'cruise-food' taste to it that's difficult to put your finger on. Very often, though, the chef will be found at the end of the self-service units cooking a stir-fry to demand - a firm favourite of mine - today at lunch, he was carving up a huge joint of pork - mmmmmm - lovely!!