A SEA DAY AS WE SAIL TOWARDS THE FALKLANDS

Day 12.08 -Dec. 26.08 Sea a little rough.

A SEA DAY AS WE SAIL TOWARD THE FALKLANDS

After the past few days of rushing from one end of the ship to the other, a million times a day, I'm ready to just sit with Tom and like him read a book. The ship is much quieter today as people lounge in chairs, cap-napping or joining in the days events.

A Petrol comes for a visit and a wee crumb someone had dropped.

Events today include a fitness class, a port talk, a Pencil Challenge (daily quiz and sudoku), coffee chat with entertainers, spa secrets, digital workshop, sea glass deck sale, culinary demo, art auction preview, blackjack tournament,, Trivia Challenge (we did this one often), Texas Hold'em Tournament, Duplicate Bridge, Cocktail Classes, Sports fun, Dance Class, Afternoon Tea, Sit and Stitch Get Together, Bingo, Cosmic Bowling, Karaoke and much more. Come with me and I'll show you all the things you can do!

Chess Anyone?

TOM and his PUSHER as we tour the ship.

I have another video that I took yesterday and forgot to include, so will add it now. Hope it works! (don't forget to turn music off to here the sea and the talking)

Back to things to do on a sea day. We love people watching. These where two very stand-out interesting couple.

This man was from England and had such a very interesting face and very nice man!

The Jennings, nice people but he never smiled!

Check out the decorations!

Go shopping.....these jackets where in the $1,000 plus, price range!

There is also a jewelery shop and a souvenirs ship, a liquor store, photo shop on board. Not to mention A CASINO! My limit was $5.00 on the 5 cent machines and lost it within 2 minutes!

Listen to classical music.

Go to flower arrangement course where they made this arrangement.

Have a drink with good friends, Guther and Illa.

Check out the decorations on the Promenade Deck 3 (my favourite deck!)

This was our nightly entertainment a funny ventriloquist, Keith Hadrill. We sat in the front row and they asked Tom what he thought of something, asked him his name, then asked who was that with him. His daughter? I yelled "Yes", so for the rest of the night, they picked on Tom and wanted to meet his daughter after the show! Tom said he won't sit in the front row again ever! hahahahah

This was a skit they put on and the fellow in the green frog outfit was a natural comic, or else just couldn't get the gist of what he was to do, and the audience was howling with laughter!

Great show!

All this put in a wonderful day around the ship and I've already left so much out, but hopefully, I'll get to show you on other sea days. Tomorrow we reach Port Stanley, Falkland Islands. Great pictures there!!!! Stay tuned!!


NOTE: FOR SOME REASON WHEN I POST MANY PICTURES, THE SPACING GETS THROWN OUT AND IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO FIX....AT LEAST I HAVEN'T FOUND A FIX YET, SO, PLEASE JUST SCROLL DOWN TO THE NEXT POSTING BELOW THIS.

THANKS

CHRISTMAS IN ANTARCTICA.08

Dec. 25.06 Day 11 at sea. Partly cloudy, 32F.

CHRISTMAS IN ANTARCTICA

Santa found us way down opposite where the old fellow lives!

A beautiful very sunny day, and the ice is massive and so white in the sunshine. The sea is smooth, and the sky reflects the the glacier blue edge of the icebergs which is a stunning sight.

We woke this morning with a cheery Merry Christmas to everyone over the speakers from the ship's entertainment directer. Tom is still in quite a bit of pain, but he carries on, regardless!

We go up for breakfast after staring in amazement at the scenery around us outside, as we slowly glide by, one ice burg after another....beginning to become quite common now, but it's different today with the sun so bright, on the snow, and also because it's Christmas and everyone is happy and wishing each other a Merry Christmas greeting.
This is Danny, wishing us a Merry Christmas! Tom would sing "Oh Danny Boy", every morning when we came up for breakfast and greeted by this smiling fellow.

Yes, that's me sitting on Santa's knee and likely he was cringing in pain, as we discussed how to solve the problems of the world, as his knee probably felt like it was breaking! It was the grown ups turn to sit on Santa's knee, and he is a cute old guy, don't you think, so how could I resist!

Yell "FIRE" and everyone runs, well, yell "Whale" or "PENGUINS", and the whole room runs to the windows and that's what happened here! The ship leaned to one side! Poor Santa carried on with the children, but the adults who where happily taking pictures of their children with Santa, forgot about the kids and rushed to the windows...Penquins....at last!! We had arrived the Chilean Scientific Center where thousands of penguins surrounded the Center. They are hard to see, but look at all the grey specks, plus they were in the water swimming, jumping up and down like little dolphins. Of course they went underwater every time I clicked the camera!!

Crosses, where of course people have died at the station. More then likely from insanity!! I couldn't stay there!! The penguins and the people seem to co-exist very well together. I heard where they would have liked to have the people there come on board for Christmas dinner, but it was too dangerous for the ship to get closer, and NOBODY on the ship was allowed by law to be ashore!These guys, I took from inside the ship window, as the ship was passing by a berg, and the penguin's we're ready to jump off the ice flow. I just happened to catch the last one going too!

I had hoped that when I zoomed in with my Picasa program, that it would stay like that, but nope....it doesn't!! I wish I had been outside, but my luck had it that I wasn't and to get there, would have been one mad dash which I couldn't have accomplished! This is our last day to view the spectacular scenery of the Antarctic Peninsula. We are now heading to Elephant Island then continue across the Drake Passage towards the Falkland Islands...which I loved!
It was so beautiful and warm as we began our leave of Antarctica. The icebergs have diminished to these square blocks of floating ice, which I'm sure the ship did NOT want to hit, as 10% is above water and 90% below the water!


This is Elephant Island, taken from inside the ship! Elephant Island is where Ernest Shackleton and his crew of 28 men, rowed three small boats to this Island when pack ice crushed their ship, The Endurance. From here, Shackleton and five men sailed 800 miles in a open lifeboat to South Georgia Island, which then they trekked across land to get help for the men left behind. Fortunately all survived!! Incredible!!

A tent set up on the ship to sort of re-create what Shackleton and his men had to live in, and how they lived, along with some interesting pictures.

We shared our table and Christmas dinner with a lovely couple from Missouri, the Jennings.

Turkey and all the trimmings! Delicious, right down to the plum pudding! Then back to our stateroom...or cabin, which is the smallest we've ever had yet. Maybe because of too many suitcases and a wheelchair. We could barely pass each other in there!It was a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

ANTARCTICA

Day 10-at sea, Wed. Dec. 24Th/08 Weather Partly cloudy 32 F, Sea is calm

Antarctica

Antarctica's huge ice sheet covers nearly 99% of it's surface which accounts for 90% of the worlds ice and holds an amazing 70% of all the fresh water on earth. If this ice sheet melted, the worlds oceans would rise precipitously. The ice cover of Antarctica is continuously moving. Large icebergs are formed at the edge of the mammoth ice shelves and glaciers calve off into the sea. Permanent floating ice shelves extend over vast areas. The largest of these formations, the Ross Ice Shelf , is the size of the State of Texas!

Cruising Antarctica waters is highly unusual in many respects, not the least due to the fact that the itinerary is largely determined by Mother Nature. The Navigator's normally rigid schedule can be completely disrupted by ice and meteorological conditions. However, we seen spectacular natural scenery, as we weave our way through narrow channels and bays. Many places the captain wanted to take us, however the channel would be blocked by massive ice, and he'd take another route through a different channel. Today, we cruise through Paradise Bay, Cuverville Island and Deception Island.

Christmas Eve and I'd go outside until my feet began to freeze and then run back in to the beautiful Christmas music playing throughout the ship. What wonder, what an amazing feeling to be where I am!!

The blue ice is the amount of oxygen compressed within the ice, which creates beautiful coloration from crystalline white, through shades of blue, green to a deep purple. Also, so many names to the ice, growlers is one, the rest I forget! The flat ones that look like Styrofoam are really neat too!

Incredible sights to see, and so many!!

Tom was no fool! He stayed where it was warm, watched out the window and had an never ending cup of coffee! People where in and out most of the morning, and then at lunch, everyone poured in to get warm and have something to eat. There was commentary from our wonderful experts that knew the area.

We had lunch with Wohpeng and Colin and after lunch, Tom went to read and I went to computer class. The room was freezing cold and I almost put my gloves o to type! The poor teacher was wrapped in a blanket. Only this room was cold, although, the ship had cold spots and warm spots! I unluckily usually found a cold spot to sit!!

Penguins!!! The first as spotting them, however I hear later the other side of the ship had a penguin colony!! Drats!! No worries, as we come to more and see THOUSANDS!! I couldn't get my camera to zoom to it's fullest and had to run upstairs to the photo lab later on, to have him show me what I'm doing wrong. Of course you see something and get all panic stricken and make one mistake after another!!! I do get my camera working and zooming later! This was a bunch sitting on the ice and the next picture.....those little dots...are penguins walking up the hill. I bet your thrilled about these shots eh....just wait!!!

I was excited!!

So, we keep on cruising in this land of huge icebergs and I keep snapping pictures, but how many can you show people! After awhile we come to a channel the Captain was going to take us down where we could reach out and touch the side of the ice, with little clearance on each side of the ship, but the channel was blocked by too much ice. Our pilot, and commentator Patrick Tooney told the Captain, he'd give him $100.00 to go in the channel, and you could hear them dickering with bets to $300.00 but the Captain, said no way to any amount!!

The rest of the day, we both decided that we'd skip the entertainment even if it was Christmas Eve! We had a nice dinner. The entertainment was called Tribute, with the singers and dancers and fancy Bob Macki outfits, which we've seen on other cruises, and really didn't care for that kind of show, so we had an early night. Our day began at 5:30 am and we we're tired!

Penguin's tomorrow!!

Antarctica Pictures

Click and move curser around to view pictures. Let me know if it works!! Remember...picture's just doesn't do this beautiful place justice. The penquin and the stories will follow. Not much comment is needed for these pictures.