(Today’s Chronicle can be found here.)
Extra-late sleep in today. My wife and son are up early to take in Kevin’s presentation on his epic adventure sailing on Enterprise Neptune, a 40 year old Bermudan cutter to commemorate 500 years since Bartolomeau Dias sailed around Cape Horn.
However, my daughter and I sleep until about 9:30 am when I go up for a forage in La Terrazza and return with berries and croissant. We work on homework for a bit and then go off to Jess and Yvonne’s joint presentation on crafting a reflection booklet.
This was a really enjoyable workshop – first Yvonne has everyone create an abstract design on a piece of paper:
Once this dries, we will fold and cut it so that it forms a little booklet.
Jess then explains that we will be heading up to spend a bit of time outdoors staring at the sea, with the goal of coming up with some words or phrases to capture in our reflections booklet. My daughter decides to come up with a haiku.
We head up to panorama to sit out for a bit – only to discover that all the couches have been lashed to the rail. Ah, well – we stand instead.
There’s a clear sense from many passengers – ourselves included – that we’re very much ready to see land again. Only one more day to go! This is the longest stretch of sea days that many of us have had, Jess included.
After about ten minutes we return to the conference room to finish building our booklets. Very proud of how our daughter’s book turned out!
Her full poem is:
Salty ocean air
Sunlight reflects off the sea
The wind lashes out
Beautiful, particularly written on that brightly-coloured book she’d just created.
Meanwhile, our son went off to assist Chloë with hosting the ping pong tournament. He did a great job keeping score.
Off to lunch, where we continue our streak at La Terrazza:
Then on to our daily walkies. An interesting mood to the sea today:
Captain Sasha confirms during his noon address that the storm is expected to catch up to us later today and that the sea state will increase to around 4 metres. Not fabulous news, but at least it’s only for a single day.
We swing by the Boutique to see if any of us managed to guess the weight of the gem, only to be told that the contest will be held at 2:45 pm and not the 1:45 pm listed in the Chronicle. Ah, well. Time enough for a nap.
The phone rings just as I’m putting my head down, but the line’s gone dead by the time I pick it up. I unplug the phone so that I’m not disturbed while sleeping.
I wake from my nap to discover that I’ve managed to win the guess-the-carat competition! Normally you have to be there in person to win, but since we attempted to show up at the right time – only to be told to leave – they still let me win especially since the rest of my family was there to collect the prize. (No, you do not get the jewelry as the prize.)
I guessed 15.8 carats – not a small jewel!
The prize is a Weddell seal stuffy and a beautiful compass:
Not bad for a day’s work!
Off for team trivia, where we are once more joined by Philip and Louise, the Administrator of Tristan da Cunha and his wife. I’m first to recall the author of To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee), wihle my son not only correctly recalls the son of Mars and Venus in Roman mythology (Cupid), but indeed corrects the question which initially asked who was the son of Mercury and Venus. We tie for first!
Next up is Destination Detective, in which the expedition team has set up some 13 different stands representing all of the different destinations that we visited on the cruise.
We need to complete each activity to access the hint or the location itself. Challenges include mini-golf and paper-ball-tossing, as well as word scrambles:
Mixed up images:
The aiming of rescue bags:
And identification of one of Yvonne’s painting locations:
It’s good fun – and quite challenging. The kids really dig into this one, not only managing to finish first but even correcting the expedition staff on the order of our journey, pointing out that we visited the mid Atlantic ridge prior to Tristan da Cunha.
Back to our rooms to get ready for dinner, and then off for the briefing and recaps:
Jamie confirms that the sea state will continue to deteriorate tonight but that it shouldn’t be as bad as expected overnight, with seas at around 3.7 metres. It will be getting worse in the morning, however.
Martin then provides his recap, in which he explores the unique colour of the ocean – which is caused due to us being in an “ocean desert” created by the layer of warm water overtop of the cold:
Yvonne then speaks to us regarding the Western Cape region:
She notes that you’ll need to visit near the end of August to see the carpet of flowers that are often shown in pictures of the region.
Alex explores the animals that people most want to become for a period of 24 hours. The albatross and king penguin were most popular, but a strange few chose the venerable snowy sheathbill (aka the poop chicken):
On the way out the door, we stop to take in the cork board where our fellow passengers have noted the moments that took their breath away:
Lots of votes for St. Andrew’s Bay, but it’s clear that this trip has had a huge impact on all of us.
Off to dinner at the Restaurant. I start with the scallops:
And then I opt for steak frites:
Followed by a novel take on black forest gateaux:
Late to bed tonight, as we stay up so that the kids can enjoy the chocolate delight in advance of the Liar’s Club.
Very tasty! But also super late – so it’s then time to head to bed before the not-suitable-for-all-ages Liar’s Club gets underway.