It's 0630 on Saturday mornings, and Aquila is now saying goodbye to Russia.

It's been an action-packed past 48 hours. Vladimir took Alan, Sarah and Pipps to the airport, and saw the girls through the airport checks.  Their flight out looked to be on time: it was the same aircraft that brought the new crew of Stuart, Ken and Sam into country. Alan and Vladimir met them as planned at arrivals, and we all enjoyed the hour's drive back to the boat through the centre of St Petersburg.

Unbeknown to us,all was not well at the airport. The plane was broken.  After much confusion, all passengers were told to go away and come back tomorrow. Of course all visas had already been cancelled during departure procedures, and there are no airport hotels. So the girls got a taxi back to the boat.  Meanwhile the new crew had gone into town to paint it red...

More later....