25th January Putting out the fires in Ponce

And it's back to Puerto Rico and it's second biggest "city" of Ponce, which is pronounced Poncay for the uninitiated. And it was our first industrial port of the trip, with two giant cranes greeting our arrival, presumably there to help lift passengers from American cruise ships ashore!!

And an industrial port means a free complimentary shuttle bus into the heart of the action. Now we like a shuttle bus almost as much as we like a tender ashore and as such as we tried to delay our departure off the ship until a 'later' start time, after another 6.30am awakening, by 8.45am we had twiddled our thumbs for long enough. As it turned out it was the right decision.

The sky was blue, the temperature not too humid and with Discovery being the only ship in port, the crowds at a minimum. It was also the date of some local festival focused around the previous activities associated with its picturesque red and black "Dennis the Menace' styled fire station. There was singing and flag waving in abundance, the usual arts, crafts and food stalls, fountains, a cathedral, wreath laying and a fabulous collection of vintage cars. Not the biggest fiesta, not the best but more than enough to help pass a very pleasant Sunday morning.

Step away from the Plaza las Delicias however, and the rest of the cultural centre of Ponce, was despite its multicoloured 1930's art deco style buildings sorely in need of regeneration, with he vast majority of the places either shut (it was Sunday remember) or simply empty and vacant. If we had turned up on any other day I really don't know what there would have been to see; thankfully we didn't.

Ponce port also allowed the first opportunity to access free WiFi, so I was able to send a couple of quick 'we are okay' e mails and upload the first batch of these blogs into cyberspace.

And I haven't even mentioned 'Winegate' yet so if you were planning an early night forget that and strap yourselves in. At dinner tonight we sat between two lovely couples, Steve and Bev from Eastwood and John and Diane from Niagra Falls, Canada. Food was being eaten, conversation was flowing and then for reasons probably not known even to himself, a certain person who might wish to remain unknown, but for arguments sake let's call him TOM, decided he needed to move nearer to the table. And in doing so knocked a full glass of red wine, not just all over the table but all over me as well. 

To quote the late great Kenny Everett, who we had just been talking about, what a Cupid Stunt!!!. It was a perfect moment for 'the face' to appear one might think, but oh no, I kept a straight one, as my light cream coloured trousers soaked up half a pint of Merlow. That particular pleasure is being held back for not just another time but several other times