Day 4 at sea from Tristan da Cunha to Cape Town

Our last full day at sea. Now there are less than 500 miles to go. Our clocks have been put forward an hour - to our last time zone of the voyage - so we are now two hours ahead of the UK and on the same time as Cape Town.

We had breakfast with Uli and Luke and decided to skip the morning lecture on birds by Will.

It had been announced that the crew would be doing a full fire drill with injured personnel and simulated fires within the ship. We went up on deck and watched the drill. We stood by the hot tubs, where Chris Grant lay in one of the Jacuzzis as the crew, in full fire gear, ran around tugging fire hoses and extinguishers. It was all very dramatic!

The fire drill in action on the aft deck

David Grant in his Titanic tee-shirt from Belfast

Chris Grant watching the drill from the hot tub

We had a late lunch and caught the last half-hour of Hans Peter's talk on South African botany. It was the last lecture of the cruise.

We went back on deck and chatted with Rob and Gayle, while Rob immersed himself in the hot tub.

Rob enjoying the hot tub

We took part in the final trivia quiz joining the team of Phyllis, Gayle, Rob, Tama and Martin. We did reasonably well, scoring 14 points. We thought it was the winning score, but someone else was pronounced the winner!

We all then went up to the theatre to see Richard Sidey's video of the cruise. It was very enjoyable to relive so many wonderful moments from the past three weeks. We also had the opportunity of thanking Stefan and several members of the expedition crew. We told them how much we had enjoyed ourselves and that we wouldn't forget in a hurry Stefan's morning wake-up call!

I went out on deck to watch the last sunset of the voyage. It was a beautiful moment and a fitting way to end the last day at sea.

At 7pm, there was the Captain's cocktail party, at which the Captain gave a brief speech and then handed out awards to the best crew members.

The Captain and all the Crew

After the cocktail party, we went to dinner where we had been placed on Daniil's table. Also on our table were David and Chris Grant and Roger and his wife Carol from Michigan. It turned out to be Carol's birthday, so there was more singing of Happy Birthday. Yet another great meal, with plenty of Pouilly Fume.

We ended the day by going to the bar and listening to Alfredo, as well as Joy and Eva. Mike the sommelier danced for us, which was very amusing! It was a good way to end the last evening on the ship.

Finally, we went up on deck to look for the Southern Cross, which I didn't find! It will be an early start tomorrow, as we want to see our arrival into Cape Town at dawn.