Surf to Sand – French Polynesia to the Atacama – Henderson Island – Day 19 can be found here.
Today’s Chronicle can be found here.
A nice relaxing start to the morning – breakfast at La Terrazza and plenty of time for reading / writing / homework before I went to the Venetian Scociety Apertif Reception at 11:15 am. We were surprised that this was scheduled mid-day, though it makes sense with early-to-bed, early-to-rise expedition schedules plus the multiple timezone changes.
On the way in, I had a good chat with Captain Freddie – I mentioned that I’d plugged our sea state for Pitcairn into ChatGPT and it had only given us a 60 to 70% chance of landing, but when I mentioned that we had Captain Freddie Ligthelm at the helm it increased our odds to 90 to 95%.
We talked a bit about our missed landing at Tristan da Cunha, and he suggested that sometimes it’s necessary to cut away from South Georgia early in order to make Tristan, Nightingale, Gough and Inaccessible. (That might have been true in our case – but how do you turn down a chance to hike into the heart of the St. Andrew’s Bay penguin colony?)
As the former captain of the Agulhas, Captain Freddie has made the trip to Tristan many times and knows the conditions well – one time he delivered an ambulance there, only for the Tristanians to crash it a few hours later.
He also mentioned that he’ll be captain of the Cloud for the upcoming Cape-to-Cape in 2026. Good to keep in mind for those hoping to maximize your chances of a Tristan landing – Captain Freddie has an excellent track record for Tristan landings.
Nilton announced the Venetian Society members who have reached 100 days (thereby earning free laundry) and those with the greatest number of days – the Newton family with 943 days.
Off to lunch at La Terrazza. We’re all becoming big fans of lunchtime sandwiches – a real time savings, plus we don’t feel nearly as stuffed after.
Back to the room for a bit. Absolutely gorgeous seas today – flat and calm:
And again that beautiful, vibrant blue:
Turning back to the subject of time zone changes, we will be advancing the clocks forward each day at 2 pm. So at 2 pm it becomes 3 pm. Usually they would do this overnight, but I suppose they’ve found that this is the better method for these kinds of rapid-fire changes. One of these days we need to book a cruise that goes from east to west, instead – it would lovely to be gaining hours instead of losing them.
We then took in Nikita’s enrichment lecture – Giants of the Blue: Cetaceans of the South Pacific:
I was fascinated to learn that whales’ ears have special adaptations, including air-filled sinuses, that prevent them from rupturing their eardrums while they dive. Similarly, their lungs collapse and air moves into their windpipe which prevents them from getting the bends. Whales also have much higher concentrations of myoglobin in their blood, which allows them to store a significantly higher concentration of oxygen than humans.
Then off to trivia – my son remembered from our Wind cruise that the two rival gangs in West Side Story are the Sharks and the Jets, and that an ‘Albatross’ is a British golf term for a double eagle. None of us remembered what Friday’s child is from the nursery rhyme – it’s “loving and giving”.
Dinner tonight was a poolside barbeque – they put out a fantastic spread for us:
I particularly enjoyed the ribs, chicken peri peri, the lobster tails, and the lamb chops. The chocolate brownies were also excellent.
Back down to La Dolce Vita while they finished cleaning our room. I asked Melissa (our server) what snacks are on offer, and she said that passengers can easily get chips, peanuts and popcorn – but if there’s something in particular they want to order, they can request it in advance either through their travel agent or by contacting specialservices@silversea.com. Cheese and crackers are also regularly available.
Time for bed! We want to get a good night’s sleep in advance of tomorrow’s planned stargazing session.
Continue reading Surf to Sand – French Polynesia to the Atacama – At Sea – Day 21.