St.Helena, Tenerife, Madeira and Vigo

On Monday, April 16. we were at St.Helena waters a few hundred meters away from fast land. One tender with Deputy Captain was sent to study the possibilities to go ashore, but unfortunately, as widely expected, the conditions at the small tender dock were too rough and for great disappointment we could not but just circumnavigate the volcanic island of about 4000 inhabitants. That took two hours,and we did continue to sail towards Tenerife of Canary Islands. After eigth days at the sea, on Sunday, April 22., we got fast land under our feet in Santa Cruz, the capital of Tenerife. When walking a while on a boulevard near the harbour, I found a nice cafe with a big TV-screen to watch the Formula I - race. To my great pleasure the Finnish pilot, Kimi Räikkönen finished second. Soon afterwards we had to be onboard again heading towards Funchal, Madeira, to where we arrived next morning. I only had one wish when in Funchal, to find an excellent fish restaurant. With Bill, an English-Australian friend we just strolled trough the city, and found at the seaside an old yacht, once owned by The Beatles. It was cemented on shore, and would never sail again, instead it had an marvellous kitchen and we got both a very tasty unknown fish, recommended to us with a bottle of wine, white for Bill, red for me. A couple of hours later we started to sail to our last port of the cruise, Vigo in north-west Spain.On Wednesday morning, April 25. Vigo was first a bit rainy , but when I left the ship, the sun, naturally, came out. I was walking around this medieval city until I got thirsty and found a nice place on a plaza to get a couple cold Spanish beers. Suddenly Bill and his Australian lady friend popped out behind the corner and joined me. I already knew where the restaurants for," Mariscos y Pescados ", good sea fruits were and did succesfully orientate directly trough unknown narrow streets of the old town just to the spot. After oysters Bill and I had difficulties to decide if Portuguese or Spanish fish was more delicate. Next day we had our last day at the sea crossing the Bay of Biscay ang English Channel before berthing on April 28. at the Mayflower Cruise Terminal in Southampton. I still shall later give my overall comments and impressions concern this World Cruise.