No seasickness. No waves breaking over the bow. Nothing falling off tables in my cabin, a mercy, since I am as disorderly at sea as on land. Impressive swells tossing the ship right to left and back, such that every passenger walks as if they were drunk (not sure how the staff manages not to, just another secret of seamanship, I guess). My cup of coffee slid to the floor at breakfast with a showy smash, but the stewards had it cleaned up and replaced (with paper napkin underneath for traction) within seconds. We are in a Beaufort Level 9 gale, which impresses the heck out of me, though a seasoned fellow passenger rated our current state as a mere 3 out of 10.
We'll be more or less like this until we reach the shelter of the islands outside the Beagle Channel just west of the tip of Tierra Del Fuego, and I will be loving every minute of it, especially the minutes I get to spend in the comfy, leather-covered chairs in the library looking out at the ocean with my feet up. Our original itinerary called for us to sail around in the islands of the Cape Horn National Park, but the Captain announced , "for obvious reasons", that we will instead make directly for less turbulent waters.
I try and fail to imagine what it would be like to be sailing this passage in a relatively small wooden ship without benefit of stabilizers, GPS, satellite weather data, and the engineering advances that permit, for instance, elevators to function flawlessly while being tossed randomly to and fro.
Plus which I may have seen an albatross winging with wonderful grace along the tops of the swells.
Damn I'm glad I'm doing this!
Yes, let's hear it for the huge cruise ship instead of the small wooden ship!
ReplyDeleteHow lovely that you're in the Beagle Channel, and envisioning what that might have been like for the shipmates on the Beagle. Darwin would be proud.
ReplyDelete