Heading for Antarctica

Hard as it is to believe, we’ve now been living on our floating home away from home for a full month, and, no pun intended, it’s been quite a ride. The Caribbean was fun, and Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina have been amazing, far exceeding my expectations. And now we’re about to plunge into a new and completely different experience, one that is sure to be memorable.

As I write this the Serenade of the Seas is roughly even with Puerto San Julian in southern Argentina, on a beeline for Antarctica. It’s getting cold outside, the waves are growing larger, and we’ve had hurricane force winds out on deck. I mentioned yesterday that our original plan was to visit the Falkland Islands first, but the weather forecast has mandated a change to the itinerary, reversing the order of those two stops. Had we adhered to the original schedule we’d have reached the Falklands tomorrow, but would have been unable to go ashore due to high winds and rough seas.

Compounding the problem, after failing to get ashore in the Falklands, the following day’s forecast would have had us facing waves in excess of 28 feet as we left there for our next scheduled stop in Antarctica. By reversing the two destinations we anticipate enduring waves of “only” 19.3 feet on the way to Antarctica, and have a fighting chance of visiting the Falklands afterwards.

My friends in the northern hemisphere may be interested to know that our sunset tonight will be at 9:01 pm, and sunrise tomorrow will be at 4:44 am. Talk about long days, and they’ll be quite a bit longer in Antarctica, where the captain said we’ll only experience three hours of twilight. That’s good news when you’re watching out for icebergs.

And on the subject of icebergs, the captain said today that we might have a chance to see the world’s biggest iceberg, known as A23a, which broke off from the Antarctic coastline in 1986. It was grounded in the Weddell Sea for most of the time since then, but has freed itself and is headed for the South Atlantic in an area known as “iceberg alley.” A23a is enormous, at 1500 square miles and 1312 feet thick, and seeing it would be, again no pun intended, very cool.

So, looking at the immediate future, we will pass south of Cape Horn around 9:00 tomorrow morning, when we should start experiencing the effects of the Drake Passage, with the expected 19 foot waves. What will the infamous “Drake Shake” be like? Consider this. The captain said that looking out the windows of the main dining room on deck four would be like looking at a washing machine. Our cabin is below that, on deck three, so we should have some amazing views to share.

As to seasickness, that’s never been a problem for me, but then again I’ve never experienced 19 foot seas. We have the motion sickness patches if we need them, and they’re also offering free pills at the guest services desk. The crew also placed, pardon my slightly crude language, barf bags in the stairwells, and asked us to secure any loose items in our cabins. In kind of a perverse way I’m actually looking forward to it as one more memorable experience on this adventure of a lifetime.

So, here we go. I’m off to batten down the hatches, whatever that means, and lash myself to the mast. Actually, I’m off to get some coffee and put the loose stuff on our desk in a drawer, but that doesn’t sound nearly as dramatic. I’ll be back when there’s enough to justify a report, so stay tuned.

Captain Stig Nilson held a briefing with Q &A in the main theater after lunch today. Needless to say, it was well attended. I’m incredibly impressed with his experience and judgment. His dry humor isn’t bad either. We’re in good hands.

This is one of the slides Captain Nilson showed during his presentation. As you can see, the changed itinerary reduces our expected wave heights from 28.2 feet to “only” 19.3 feet.

In anticipation of a healthy amount of tossing and turning, the crew has placed barf bags in all the stairwells. Hopefully no one will need them.