September 26th – St John’s Newfoundland

After 4 long days at sea (and fortunately only one stomach-churningly rough day, Thank God!), we finally saw dry land, as we reached the nearest part of North America to Europe – the wild coast of Newfoundland.

In my desperation to see land, I even got up early to be on deck for spectacular our sail-in through the Narrows to St John's sheltered harbour. The Narrows certainly live up to their name – a small opening in the cliffs just 650 feet wide – dominated by the canons pointing down from the top of Signal Hill up above, and then the city's beautiful harbour opened up ahead of us, the city's buildings glinting in the early morning sun.

It had been a beautifully clear morning, but there was a cold wind was howling in at us as we passed through the Narrows into the harbour. However, by mid-morning it was absolutely boiling – not what you'd expect of an autumnal day in Newfoundland – which meant that we had way too many layers on, which swiftly had to be jettisoned back at the ship, although this did give Tracy a chance to play with the gorgeous Newfoundland and Labrador dogs that were on the dockside.

Although it has 100,000 people living there, St John's still has a small town feel – the people are friendly, the shopping is low scale, and the atmosphere is relaxed. We did a bit of general exploring around its old colonial buildings, and then began the long, hot climb up Signal Hill, to get some spectacular views down over the Narrows, the Harbour, and the rest of the city.

On a sunny day, St John's and its environs are incredibly scenic and great for walking; so, from there, we carried on trekking over the top of the hill down to the little fishing village of Quidi Vidi, with its quaint houses overhanging the water's edge. By the time we'd made it back to St John's we'd been walking for about 6 hours, so it was time for a rest and some food back on the ship.

Fortunately, the ship was in town overnight, so we had a chance to explore the St John's nightlife, which is surprisingly lively for a small place. But, before we hit the pub and the beer, we had one more cultural thing to do – to head uphill again, and visit The Rooms, the town's museum and art gallery, which happens to open late (and is free entry!) on a Wednesday. Again, for a small place, the displays up there were very good.

Finally, it was time to explore the Irish heritage of St John's, and go to a folk night in one of the many pubs offering live music. When you talk to a Newfoundlander, the thick Irish brogue of the locals sounds like they might have just got off the boat from Waterford, so it's no surprise to hear that the Irish music on offer here is of a really high quality. In the pub we chose, The Ship, there were five people playing fiddles, two guitarists, an accordion player, and two people on the Bhodran, which gave the place a wonderfully Irish atmosphere. After a few hours of toe-tapping music and a few Guinnesses, I was in Irish heaven – a great way to end what had been a really enjoyable day.

21st September – Whiskey Tasting in Cork

In the morning, we did a little exploring of the quaint village of Cobh - a little place with a big history for shipping. It was from here that around 2.5 million Irish emigrants would have sailed to new lives in Britain, America, Canada and Australia after the tragedy of the Potato Famine; this was the last place that the "unsinkable" Titanic called in before it hit the iceberg in 1912; and it was just off the coast that the Lusitania was sunk in 1915, killing over 1,000 people, and leading the US to join World War One.

Then, in the afternoon, I joined the ship's tour to the Jameson's Distillery in Midleton, about 15 miles away. Pernod Ricard, who own Jameson's, have built a modern distillery next to the old one, which has been converted into a slick visitor centre that gives interesting tours taking you through the complicated process of turning barley into whiskey. The presentations were keen to differentiate Irish whiskey from Scotch whisky, and tried to make out that it was the Irish who taught the Scots what to do anyway. In doing this, they had to gloss over the fact that their founder, John Jameson was actually a Scot.

One of the more interesting aspects of the tour was to look at the strangeness of our young female guide, who bizarrely had thick black eyebrows painted on like Groucho Marx and spoke with an odd accent that confused even the Irish people on the tour. By the end of the tour we were all convinced that she was a robot – she appeared to glide rather than walk, and her rehearsed gesticulations seemed to have all the humanity of an automaton. Maybe she was semi-pickled by drinking too much whiskey, because our tasting at the end proved that it's pretty addictive stuff – smooth and warming.

Fortified by our tasting, most people had nodded off by the time we reached the ship – fully relaxed before our 4 day crossing over to Newfoundland. We pray for smooth seas!

20th September – Waterford

Because it's my ancestral home (my Grandmother came from there) I've been to Waterford many times, so today I chose to get out of the city and head off inland and explore some of the historic sights of neighbouring County Tipperary.

We first went to the incredibly evocative sight of the Rock of Cashel – founded 1,500 years ago as the seat of the High Kings of Munster. The Rock sticks out above the fertile plains of Tipperary, and it's topped with an atmospheric set of ruined church buildings dating from the 11th to the 13th century – the grey limestone buildings rising out of the limestone of the rock make it seem like they're one organic ensemble.

After lunch and an obligatory pint of Guinness in Cashel, we travelled to Cahir (pronounced "Care") to visit its impressive medieval Castle. Considering that this isn't one of the more famous castles in Ireland, it was great to explore because it was so wonderfully intact – it didn't take too great a leap of the imagination to imagine the knights clanking around in their armour overlooking the battlements, or the Earl of Essex besieging the castle in the 1590s.

On the long drive back to Waterford, the views over Ireland's emerald green countryside were always stirring, although as you passed through each village and town, the shut up shops and pubs were a sad reminder of the economic pain that Ireland's going through these days.

19th September – Plymouth

Plymouth was the scene of my infamous Stag Weekend in 1999, which has left me with some hazy memories of the place. So, today was about introducing Tracy to the scene of various incidents, accidents, and punishments inflicted on me by my fellow stags. Of course, it was also about discovering the rich maritime history of a city that's been the starting off point for many epic voyages of discovery and the home of the Royal Navy for the past 500 years.

Whilst the presence of the naval base has been the engine of the city's growth over the centuries, it also caused the Plymouth to suffer terribly in the Second World War, when much of the city centre was destroyed in a series of devastating German bombing raids in 1941. The ruined city was quickly re-built in concrete in the 1950s, and this has given the less-than-beautiful shopping streets of the city centre a similar feel to East Germany.

After exploring this concrete jungle, we then headed down to the part of Plymouth where you can savour the city's maritime legacy – The Hoe. We passed the bowls club and the statue of Sir Francis Drake, to remind us of his Armada-defeating antics in 1588, and we looked out to sea (our view occasionally blocked by a Plymouth University graduation ceremony), to the Royal Navy ships and the Silver Whisper out in the Sound.

We then may our way down to the Barbican, the only bit of historic Plymouth to survive largely intact. Here, in its narrow lanes of historic Elizabethan houses and warehouses, we could at last imagine the city of Drake and Raleigh, while I got regular disconcerting flashbacks of alcohol-based torture inflicted on me in 1999.

18th September – Back At Sea Again

So, after an idyllic summer of surfing, Olympic watching and campervanning around Spain and France, we're now back to life on the ocean wave, as we've re-joined the Silver Whisper in Southampton, for a 2-month jaunt across the Atlantic, sailing up and down the Canadian and New England coast, before heading down to the Caribbean for a bit of much-needed warmth.

It was lovely to catch up with some old friends and familiar faces, but I was thrust straight into the lecturing swing, with a lecture on Plymouth at 4pm - it's all go being a Destination Lecturer!

May 12th – Journey’s End

So, after 127 days at sea, 52 lectures, 5 bridge narrations, 29 countries, 12 pounds lost and 1 fainting episode, we are coming to an end of an epic journey, and heading back to Southampton tomorrow.

The plan is that we're now going to be in the UK for a bit, with brief visits to Spain and Greece, before we head down to Spain again in the campervan to hopefully learn how to surf (this may be a physical impossibility at this advanced stage of our lives, but we can dream!).

We're next going to be at sea in September, back on the Silver Whisper, sailing from Southampton to New York, then sailing up to Canada and back a couple of times, before heading south for some warmth in the Caribbean.

See you soon!

May 11th – Cognac Tasting

For our second day in Bordeaux, I joined the ship's tour to the brandy-producing town of Cognac. Of course, this isn't any old brandy they produce here - in Cognac, they've made their brandy into an art form, and they go through a number of very particular processes that give their product a unique quality that allows them to charge an arm and a leg for every bottle.

We went to the largest Cognac house of them all – Hennessey – a place where the visitor experience is as slick and silky smooth as the best Cognac. You catch a boat over the Charente River to visit their ageing warehouses, and as soon as you enter the dark buildings, you're hit by the heady aromas of Cognac – according to our guide, Hennessey has about €1 billion worth of Cognac of various ages (some well over 100 years old) stored in its different warehouses.

These aromas we were smelling are part of the so-called "angel's share", as each year about 2-3% of the contents of the ageing barrels are lost into the atmosphere by evaporation. Since that's the equivalent of 20 million bottles of wine a year, those angels must be very happy indeed.

On our guided tour, we were taken through the complex processes of Cognac production, and the magical blending processes that ensure that every single Cognac bottle of a certain classification will taste exactly the same. Of course, to test that, we had to pit our expert palettes against the Cognac, so we had a tasting of a couple of different ones. I'm not used to drinking Cognac in the morning, but even at this odd hour to be having a brandy, you could tell it was pretty good stuff (even if it was a little too strong for me).

Just to prove that the day was turning upside down, after having the quintessential after-dinner drink, we then went for dinner at a local restaurant – where the food was typically excellent.

A culinary feast like this is the perfect way to finish off our 4 and a half months of travelling around the world. About a week ago, I'd actually lost around 12 pounds in weight over the course of the world cruise – I think I've put I've put it all back on again over this last leg from Monaco.