The boat was, at least, still moving as I woke up. I took this to be a good sign, feeling hopeful that in a few hours the coastline would be visible. indeed our captain indicated this to be the case - though I was now taking his information with an extremely large pinch of salt. With the good news, I took breakfast on the deck of the ship in the warm morning sun pleased that things were looking up. Yes it would be later than planned but it was nothing to worry about.

We passed the time playing cards and it wasn't long before land came into sight. Our moods increased to the point that we actually started to pack our bags. For some reason we started to slow down and the sound of the anchor dropping confirmed that we would be here for a while longer. 4 hours turned into 8 hours which turned into uncertainty. This really bugged me. Every hour that passed didn't neccessarily mean that we were an hour closer to arriving. We just sat and waited. Apparently the harbour was full and we had to wait. "Sometimes we must wait two days" the second mate helpfully informed me. He couldn't care less, whatever happened he would still be on the ship.

I didn't know if that was the real reason for our delay. We were on board an Azeri ship and it's possible that the Turkmen authorities (who aren't the best of friends with the Azeris over an oil field dispute) just wanted to keep the ship anchored at their pleasure. Either way, Turkmenbashi, the head of Turkmenistan, will spend millions of dollars bulding himself monuments and statues, but will not upgrade hs port.

The hours crept by. We tried everything to keep ourselves occupied and our minds off how annoyedwe were. Being cooped up on the boat really felt like a prison. I can't understand why people will pay hundreds of dollars to go on a cruise when effectively you spend two weeks living on a boat. My idea of hell. At least the health and safety inspectorate doesn't exist here. We managed to turn the upper deck into a giant obstacle curse, climbing up masts and scrambling over lifeboats. The crew remained as unfriendly and invisible as ever. I wondered if they really existed.

Our 36th hour on board was toasted in with a bottle of Vodka and we sang stupid songs, changing the lyrics to reflect our undying love for Turkmenbashi and the Azeri ship. After this we headed to bed pissed off but drunk - at least our worries would wait till the morning.