I'm on a boat!

The Central Atrium

 Standing on the helipad, at the bow of the ship

Well, it's been a pretty insane 24 hours, as it always is, at the start of a tour. And, using the word "tour" feels kind of odd, as we're essentially in the same place, for the next five days. Two gigs, a wine-tasting and an interview session. That's our workload. But getting here was a pretty long day. Up at 5am, then packing the case. Into a cab at 11am, from Epsom, and off to Heathrow. Then, after a really painless check-in, into the lounge to work on schedules for the release of tickets for the EMF/JJ shows in October. 

From there - onto the plane. And here's where it gets very cool: it was actually pretty empty. That just doesn't happen anymore, at all. With the advent of online ticketing, and multiple systems crawling the net to allocate tickets, most airlines can predict passenger loads, adjust schedules, and provide just the right amount of planes, with just the right amount of seats. The end result: most planes these days are packed - especially in economy. Because if there were spare seats, they'd be aggressively sold, until capacity is reached.

but somehow, this Virgin plane was lovely and empty. I've not seen wide open spaces like that, for at least 20 years.

Stretch out and sit where you want! 

But, it was a long flight - ten hours, down to Tampa - with a noticeable headwind for large parts of the journey. It's one of those flights where the engines are fighting waves of wind - they sound like they're constantly spooling up, then almost being switched off, which is somewhat disconcerting. But, it was fine. We got to Tampa around 8pm, local time, hotel by around 9.30pm. Then, to a bar called The Bricks to celebrate Alan's birthday. From there, I went back to bed, to try and pass out. Only a partial success - I was awake at about 3.30 am, but grabbed another hour or so, in fitful napping. Checkout at 9am, off to the Harbour, to check in, for the Cruise. We were ushered into a lounge, for a private function - essentially welcoming all of the "talent" (always makes me laugh) and giving us instructions for the next few days. Then, time to check the guitars on the hire pull list, visit tonight's venue, and try and powernap before soundcheck. that's in around half an hour's time. Then? Get some food, get some sleep, and we're not on until 11pm. So it's a late one. I suspect that jet lag will hit us pretty hard, at some point. Not much we can do about it, so we'll just have to make the most of things. 

Oh, and this boat hasn't even moved yet - we're still docked. If I post tomorrow, I'll try and get some shots of the open seas. Honestly, this is one of the oddest things I've ever done, but at the same time, it's quite thrilling.