DAY 13

Today we were in Greencastle, Ireland. I was able to get off the ship for some time and explore. The ship was anchored just off the shore so everyone getting off the ship was taken to land on tender boats. I took a shuttle bus from where the tender dropped me 45 minutes away to Londonderry. Derry is supposedly the last completely walled city still in existence in Britain. The first thing I did was walk all the way around the city on top of the wall. It still looked like a wall that men with bows and arrows would stand on and shoot at the enemies through the cracks at the top of the wall. As I walked around the wall there were a few people in period costumes from the 17th century. They were acting as someone would back in those days.

I had heard about the age-old battle between the people from the North of Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, but I didn’t expect that it was still on display for all to see. I saw one example of this walking around Londonderry in the form of a tall stack of crates with the Irish flag at the top. When I saw it I didn’t think anything of it really, but someone told me later that in the evening they set fire to the stack of pallets and watch the flag burn in support of a united country under British rule.

Loads of people were late getting back to the ship including me. I took the last shuttle bus out of Londonderry, which left at about quarter past four. There was some traffic as we head out that slowed us down by about 10 minutes so we didn’t get back to the ship until about ten past five. All on board was supposed to be at five....We weren’t the only ones, however, because there was still a long queue for tender boats and a tour bus that still hadn’t arrived back yet.

In the evening at quarter to eight until half past, there was a Wardroom event called Pre-dinner Drinks where the officers were meant to invite any passengers that they wanted up for a drink (you guessed it) before dinner. I invited the mother/daughter team I had met from the Senior Officer’s Cocktails. We had a good chat and I showed them around the wardroom. I could see they were impressed and I told them it’s not bad being an officer on board the ship of dreams.

That night I went up to the Trattoria in the conservatory with a fellow officer. There is Trattoria in the Conservatory every formal night and there are two different menus, which they alternate through. I ordered a pizza that had parmaa ham and mushrooms on it with an antipasti to start.

After dinner me and my colleague headed up to the Horizon for a nightcap and spotted a passenger I had invited to the wardroom Pre-dinner drinks event earlier on. After a friendly chat it was off to bed to end another day on board the Artemis.