Surprises

So here we are in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, about as far from land as we've ever been. I'm lounging in our comfy little cabin, munching an apple and gazing out on a choppy, bouncy sea, when a bird flies by. A bird! And not just a seagull, which you don't see this far from land anyway, but a tiny olive and yellow warbler about half the size of a chickadee! It lands on our balcony, discovers an Azorean wasp that died there the day before, gobbles it down and hops under the divider to the next balcony.

In the dining room later that evening the steward gave me a little box of granola and the dining room manager came over to compare notes about birds - he has birds and fish back home in Indonesia. I'm hoping word will get around among the Indonesian members of the crew - most of the dining room and cabin stewards are Indonesian - and I'll hear if the little one shows up somewhere else on the ship.

We're skirting the edge of a tropical depression and had quite a rough, windy day yesterday, so I suppose the tiny little thing was blown like a feather from its regular migration route to our ship. I hope he can hang on until we get to Bermuda in 4 days.

Now we're cutting across the northern part of the Sargasso Sea, a calm, rainless vortex in the middle of the Atlantic. Another thing I've always wanted to see - another tick-mark for this trip. The weather is much better than yesterday, calm and sunny and very warm. Sailors have dreaded this area since the days of Columbus (or before - I'm reading a book called 1421 by Gavin Menzies, about the great Chinese expedition that explored the world between 1421 and 1423. They were here, of course, just like they were nearly everywhere else). One reason I'm glad we've got good strong diesel engines and don't have to rely on sails. Anyway, the surprise here is that there really is seaweed floating around. Not thick out here at the northern edge, but in streaks that look at first like some other ship (certainly not the Noordam, which works very hard at being environmentally friendly) has emptied its sewage tanks. But if you dare look more closely, it's just seaweed, the bladder sort that you see on rocks around Peggy's Cove and everywhere else. Kinda comforting, really, but surprising out here in a place that redefines nowhere for me.

While we're at it, there have been a lot more surprises on this voyage:

• Florence: how lovely it all is.
• Pisa: more than just the tower. The whole area around the cathedral is lovely. The cathederal, started in 1063, is my favourite.
• Monaco: all about money, but so clean.
• Barcelona: I knew Gaudi's Sagrada Familia church would be wonderful, and it was, but his other stuff made me laugh with delight too.
• Valencia: ladies making lace in the middle of a circle of needlework shops.
• Cadiz: it felt like home. Not spectacular, but familiar in a way that makes me wonder if my Spanish ancestors lived there.
• The Azores: green! and lovely, every inch. But too humid for me; I'd go moldy in a week. Pity. Otherwise I couldn't think of any place I'd rather live.
• Ron in formal dress. You really can clean that guy up. Just wait until I can post a picture or two!

So it's a fine trip so far. I just hope my little warbler turns up.