Portland

Left Southampton at 6 pm for Portland, Dorset.  Now Portland is 68 Miles by road from Southampton but we didn’t dock until 8 am so we must have travelled down to the Canary Islands overnight in order to get here by then LOL!!!! Anyway, I know we had to go out to sea then back in but it does make me laugh, surprised a ship can actually travel that slowly. But what a welcome we had!  Another Regent ship, the Explorer, almost brand new, was already docked and as we approached a tug boat had water spraying  to welcome us.  

We both had tickets for an excursion to a castle ruins and a country drive but I turned mine in yesterday so that I could have a look at the other ship and also go local on the shuttle.  The Explorer is unbelievable! Very grand, bigger than our ship as carries over 700 passengers and our little Navigator looked like a  dinghy beside it.  The fittings, woodwork, artwork, culinary kitchen where about 16 people can do a full on cooking class with own bench, staircases, spacious lounges etc etc were nothing short of amazing.  But it was nice to come back to our ship afterwards, it is very comfortable and definitely feels like home! 

I took the shuttle into the town of Weymouth where the annual Dorset Seafood Festival was taking place.  Apparently there were around 40,000 people present, some obviously from the 2 ships, having a look, and seafood stalls lined the street both sides of the harbour.  They had beer tastings, clothing stalls, souvenirs, and of course all the varieties of fish including oysters, muscles, pippies, clams, calamari.  As I walked along I heard a group singing and the song was ‘bound for South Australia’ - I don’t think I can send the little video on my blog site though.  

Back on board for lunch - always plenty of seafood available here, too!- and we departed at 2 pm.  Both ships blew their horns several times, everyone was waving, there was a singing group on the dock and also beautiful Elgar piped music as we pulled away.  Thought that was enough until they fired three cannons!!! Was a very special farewell.  Some of our crew moved across to the other ship during the morning, did an exchange.