No sooner had our ship left the Bosphorus and entered the Black Sea after dinner last night, than it began to move left and right, up and down. It seemed that we were in for a rough spell. It was nowhere near as bad as that time in May 2013 in the Mediterrean, when we had to abandon a planned visit to Corsica, but after the last two weeks of near-perfect conditions at sea, it was a reminder that these things cannot be taken for granted. Nevertheless, we managed to have a good night's sleep and by mid-morning, conditions had improved significantly. Looking back, it was the only time during the entire cruise that we had anything less than very good weather at sea.

After all of the busy days spent ashore during the past two weeks, it was good to relax and enjoy time aboard the ship. We also had time to meet some of the people who had joined the ship yesterday. We were told that on this leg of the cruise there were only 160 passengers (plus 162 crew members, which sounded like a very pleasing ratio to me!). Considering that the maximum passenger capacity is 378, that meant 218 spare beds! Shortly after we booked this cruise, it was sold out, but the crisis in Ukraine and the changed itinerary had resulted in many cancellations, notably from two American groups. Of the 160 passengers, 100 were British, 20 from the USA, 20 from Canada, the remaining 20 coming from an assorted mix of countries. Many of our fellow British passengers were members of a Bridge playing group, which meant that we wouldn't be seeing too much of them, as there was a lot of serious playing to be done.

Unusually for us, we didn't take any photographs today. We were too busy attending lectures, eating, drinking and generally relaxing! We were lucky enough to be invited to have dinner in the evening with the cruise director, which turned out to be a very entertaining meal.