24th July

Sea Day Sunny partly cloudy Temp 27c Moderate sea.

As is quite usual on sea days after breakfast we went to a port talk by Narelle Froude this time about Antigue our next port. As we have been there already we have decided to just do our own thing there. However it was good to be reminded about the area. Coral and most of our table are doing the tour of Nelson’s Dockyard and Shirley Hieght which is what we did.

We have new lecturers onboard and Ian & I went to the fisrt one today at 11am. Evon Anderson will be giving a series called “History & Maritime Series”  The first one is part one of “John F Kennedy” She told us lots of things about JFK which we did not know and have only been made public recently. She started with his childhood and detailed all the illnesses he had. He was quite a sick person almost from birth. He was always in competition with he elder brother who was being groomed by his Father to be the President. The family were mega rich and were able to buy their way anywhere. Joe Kennedy gave funds to President Roosevelt who gave him the plumb job of Ambassador to England,  only to sack him later when he did not need his money. JFK went to Harvard University and probably gain entry through his Fathers money. He wanted to join the forces but was rejected because of ill health however after his Father  called one of his high ranking friend JFK was admitted and we all know he commanded  a torpedo boat. After many girlfriends he of course went on to marry Jacqueline Bouier. (not sure of the spelling). As we all also know he eventually became President with the help of a huge PR campaign. While he was President he had numerous affairs including the well know one with Marilyn Monroe. Jackie apparently was aware of a lot of them. They certainly led different lives to us. Tomorrow we will get part 2 of this lecture.

As usual on sea days we met Coral for lunch at 12.30pm after she had been to Bridge lessons. Another new lecturer is Peter Anderson who is doing an astronomy series but as this does not appeal to either of us we spent the afternoon reading and sorting out photographs. At 5pm I went to another lecture given by Geof Gray called Political & Economic Series. Geof has spent a lot of time in the Australian Diplomatic Corps and today talked about his time spent in New York. It was a very interesting talk but I wished it had been on before we went to New York rather than after we had left.

Our entertainment tonight was in the Vista Lounge to see Michael Ziegfeld a Comic-Ventriloquist who was very funny with his Jewish humour. The usual gang then when together for hot chocolate before bed.