Brian Hart
England and Iberia Day 17

england · portugal · spain

England and Iberia Day 17

The final day, somewhere in the English Channel

· 3 mins read

  • Start of day: At sea
  • End of day: At sea

Our final full day on the ship, and a sea day. This will be brief.

Our adjoining staterooms. Rowan and I were in the left one, Sherri and Siena on the right.

A short alcove off a ship's corridor with two stateroom doors side by side, separated by a square structural column. The doors are pale grey with brushed steel lever handles and card readers, and each carries a small black door hanger printed DEEP SLEEP in white. Cream vertical-grained timber panelling lines the alcove walls, with a black band at waist height carrying white cabin number plates reading 146 on the left and 148 on the right, each with DECK 3 in small type above. A single round ceiling light glows overhead and grey carpet runs across the threshold.

There was a heavy set of doors that ran between the rooms. As far as we could tell, there wasn’t a way to prop the doors open. The utility of having a door between the rooms was marginal.

A beautiful sunset from our room: A sunset over open ocean seen from inside the ship through a large window divided into panes by dark metal mullions studded with rivets. The sun sits as a small bright disc just above a flat, clean horizon, laying a pale gold path across gently rippled deep blue water. Above it the sky grades from warm apricot at the horizon through pale gold to soft blue, streaked with thin cirrus and two long contrails, with a band of small pink and grey clouds catching the light to the right. A cream curtain hangs at the left edge of the frame and the pale windowsill runs across the bottom.

Our final evening: A dimly lit cruise ship stateroom at night, photographed from the entry passage. Two single beds made up in cream bedding stand side by side in the foreground, the nearer one with a folded grey throw across its foot and stacked white pillows against a pale timber headboard wall. A single bedside lamp is on between them. Beyond the beds a grey sofa under a framed picture of a red fish holds a jumble of packed bags, with more luggage on the floor beside it. A curtained window, a writing desk with a lit lamp and a wall-mounted television fill the far corner, and the floor is laid with a dark patterned carpet.