Antarctica to Zimbabwe – Day 34 – Silver Wind, Drake Passage can be found here.
Up dark and dumb at 3 am, feeling like I was being tossed from my bed. Not sure what the swells were exactly, but Windy says close to 4 metres. It seemed like a lot. But by 5 am it felt as though we rounded a corner and the swells dropped significantly.
I eventually fell back asleep, and we woke at around 8 am for breakfast at La Terrazza. Jess and the expedition staff are putting on a play today – a live-action adaptation of The Explorer and The Journalist. The play will explore the controversy between Dr. Frederick Cook – who claimed to be the first to reach the North Pole – and English journalist Phillip Gibbs.
It was a phenomenal show – hugely informative and full of drama. (How long has it been since I last mentioned how much I like having a writer on board? At most five minutes, I suspect.)
Jess didn’t ask that we reach any conclusions as to whether Cook had in fact reached the pole, but instead to use this story as a lens through which we could see the increasing polarization of our own world.
Then off on a scavenger hunt!
I think my personal favourite photo was the one that combined both the penguin book and the treadmill:
We also spotted the Silver Cloud, which appears to be a holding pattern as they wait to head through the Drake passage to Antarctica. There seem to be swells of around 5 metres at the moment, but conditions should improve significantly within a day or so:
Off to lunch, where we pillaged the seafood buffet:
The kids ate off the menu, and I had a small portion of the spaghetti and meatballs:
All very tasty.
Then off to golf putting, where we did fairly well but not well enough to make the podium. It was Igor’s birthday and we sang to him just before he got a hole-in-one – very fun.
My wife and kids then went to the guess-the-weight for a gem necklace at the Boutique. The kids actually came pretty close – they didn’t win, but the best guessers didn’t show up to claim their prize so it’s possible that they might still get some kind of credit at the Boutique! (No, you don’t get the necklace – as many had hoped.)
Back to the room for a bit of writing and homework, and then the kids went off to the crevasse workshop.
They learned all kinds of knots, how (theoretically) to self-rescue from a crevasse, and how to use a pully system to shift vast amounts of weight. The instructor, George, suggested that the kids undertake a glacier training course at some point – though our youngest will have to be 12 years old first.
One of the complex rigs that the passengers were taught
Then up to trivia, where the kids put out another solid performance – enough to take second place. My son knew that Hades was the god of the underworld while my daughter answered that “ring-a-ring-o’-roses” was about the bubonic plague!
We also got some snaps of the view along the Beagle Channel – it’s actually quite scenic:
We carry on to the recap brief, where we go over all the many stops we had made along the way.
Marieke did a very good job but this was still something of a letdown for us as it came in place of the truly exceptional recap videos that Silversea used to put together. Still fun to reminisce, just not the same as watching an extended, professionally shot and narrated video that lays out the trip in detail.
There’s a brief break, then we reconvene for the Captain’s Farewell. It’s the end of the month, so they are handing out staff awards – one to Manny the AC guy who fixed our heating on the first day, and another to Mehdi the restaurant manager.
Both seem extremely moved by the recognition so I expect it has some fairly significant impact on pay, benefits and promotions. (Or at least gets you some premium wifi which apparently is one of the most common – and coveted – awards for the crew, who only gets the basic package.)
The crew really has been exceptional this trip, so we very much enjoyed having the chance to celebrate them and everything they do for the passengers. I only wish that they mentioned the crew fund earlier in the trip, as opposed to near the end – we had donated earlier but few of the newcomers know about it until the very end, and then they’re in the midst of packing up.
They then put the cruise’s chart up for auction, complete with beautiful handmade sketches from one of the crew members. It ended up selling for $1,600 – a fine boost for the crew fund!
Off for dinner:
I had the shrimp to start, while my wife had the tomato soup (not pictured):
I had the herb-crusted beef tenderloin for my main:
While my wife had the cod fillet with crab hollandaise:
For dessert, I had the forest berry cobler:
We’ve been low on berries lately, so I’ve really been craving them.
Our daughter had the vanilla panna cotta:
It jiggles in an entertaining fashion at the slightest vibration.
Another fanastic meal – the perfect way to cap our trip across the Drake. (We’ll still have to head back outside the Beagle Channel to dump our greywater later this evening, but the heavy lifting is done and dusted at this stage.)
On the way back to our suite, I grab a snap of the map board:
It’s been a fantastic trip – and it’s just getting started.
Continue reading Antarctica to Zimbabwe – Day 36 – Silver Wind, Puerto Williams.