I’ve decided to go the whole hog with this blogging thing and created our own YouTube channel to supplement our written posts. And I have to say, “How hard is that?”

Hats off to all you semi- or professional bloggers who just seem to have a natural rapport with the camera. I’m finding it VERY difficult in deed. But then it is my first attempt, and I guess I’m still learning.

Problems like – being self conscious. It’s easy to write stuff because no one is reading over your shoulder and they only see the final edited version. Conversely, it’s extremely daunting to stand holding the camera and film yourself giving a narrative with a crowd of curious onlookers. So far now, I haven’t got the confidence to do that and I’m giving live performances a miss.

Next problem? How to be original? I don’t want to just do a repeat of the hundreds of ship walkthroughs we’ve been watching ourselves. I came with a few ideas but so far they have been non starters.

For instance – I had planned to do quite a few “chats” from the decks of the ship, but the background noise so far has been horrendous. Especially the wind. So I won’t know if that’s turned out OK until I start editing it together.

I planned to sneak around the ship in the early hours of the morning, but so far I’ve not risen early enough to avoid a crowd. And I’ve been on deck for 7 a.m. the last few days.

I had planned to do some shots on various parts of the ship e.g. The rock wall, but the shot I imagined isn’t possible – the access isn’t as I’d imagined and again I need some privacy and I’m finding that there is either a crowd or its cordoned off with no access.

So I’m flying blind a bit and just trying to improvise as I go along.

Knowing your kit helps. I used my Nikon in live view mode for the first time and thought I had got some excellent video of dolphins hurtling towards the ship, only to find I hadn’t pressed the shutter release properly and missed the whole thing.

But as I said, it’s a learning curve. I’ve recently deleted a blogging app that I used in Lanzarote in favour of the WordPress app, only to find I can’t save a post unless I’m connected to the Internet. Is that right? Surely there must be times when you have to save locally? The Internet on board ship is way too expensive, so I’ve resorted to the notepad onboard and I’m posting now I’m back home.

How do you know what to say when the camera is rolling? Normally I can chat for England (as we say) but even if I practice before hand, as soon as I press record I don’t seem to be able to string a sentence together without an “errrr” or long pauses between words as I try to think what’s next. And even as I listen to myself, I hear the lack of energy, the lack of enthusiasm good grief, lack of personality? Maybe it’s because I’m trying to keep my voice down in case someone hears!

So, hats off to all of you who have got the knack.   I’m not sure this is something I’m going to conquer!