Thursday 4th September - 21:15, Corus factory, Beverwijk (Dutch time)

I thought it might make some of you giggle to hear about the food on board.

I am a reluctant vegetarian, and was secretly slightly relishing the opportunity to eat meat (largely) guilt free for a couple of weeks. Arriving on board has confirmed my suspicion that vegetarianism isn't a viable option on a Polish boat. We are served platefuls of food, with no choice of either contents or portion size.

The first two dinners were roughly what I'd expected - variations on meat + boiled potatoes (with gherkins the first night, and in a stew the second). Breakfast - a boiled egg the first day, a frankfurter the next, with bread and jam. I got scared I would end up constipated and scurvy-ous after 2 weeks of this, so went to Haarlem and bought apples and vitamin c to keep me going. But then came tonight's dinner...

A large pile of droopy lettuce in a creamy sauce. A main dish of three large pancakes, stuffed with that savoury cheese you get in eastern European pastries, and covered in chocolate sauce. Plus, a chocolate mousse-cum-blancmange, with cherry syrup (possibly leftover from the lunch I missed), a pear and a large carton of orange juice.

Surely not a typical Polish dinner? I am wondering if this was a last-night-on-land celebratory dinner, or if the chef was using up his leftovers, or if he just gets bored (as the rest of the sailors surely do) of meat and potatoes, and fancies a change just once in a while.

Or perhaps he is experimenting with vegetarianism.