The Ins and Outs of cruising

We have left Antigua (Incident free this time Janet) and have arrived in St Lucia, the temperature is a balmy 27c, oh the hardship. When traveling with 2,000 other souls (quite small by other ships 4,000 plus passenger standards) you can hear some priceless throw away lines in lifts and bars, these I promise are true. In the lift this morning on my way to a porridge breakfast, two elderly ladies in the lift " I didn't realise there would be so many coloured people in the Caribbean". In the Costa coffee area "There is no room in my single cabin. After I put my 14 pairs of shoes away, there is no room for anything else." This is not me I hasten to add, again in Costa " Can I have a skinny Latte and two chocolate muffins, because I am on a diet". To encourage single travellers to mix and integrate singles coffee mornings are held, I thought out of interest I would saunter by for research purposes, it was like a meeting for the baffled and bewildered, with the bewildered winning a narrow victory on away goals and copious amounts of mogadon and prozac. Everyone comes on a cruise for a different reason, some reasons are blatantly obvious,like the lady in yellow as she has become known, who zeroes in like an Exocet missile on any male she spots sitting by them-self and starts a conversation with them at the drop of a hat, the prime requirement in the male target seems to be the presence of a pulse. There are of course the male equivalent who prey on the single female traveller, the favourite tactic seems to be in offering their services as a dance partner in dance classes, which suffers from a lack of males with two legs. The Lady in Yellow seems to have struck up a liaison with a 6ft plus, perm tan gentleman, with a Pancho Villa moustache given to wearing billowing new romantic shirts, to me he looks like a member of a Village People tribute act. Another thing I have noticed is he likes a drink, but he hasn't used his cruise card yet, so who is doing what to who? The plot thickens, watch this space.