Greetings from the south Atlantic. Today is the second of two consecutive sea days as we work our way toward Antarctica, with a couple stops still to go between here and there. At lunch today the captain announced that we had entered the Roaring Forties, the section of the southern Atlantic Ocean between the 40th and 50h parallels of latitude where strong westerly winds are the norm. And if today’s winds are indeed the norm, it’s going to be blustery for a while, as we still have the Furious Fifties and Shrieking Sixties to look forward to. On my walk today I was blown down one side of the ship and had to fight my way up the other. Enough about the wind, though. You get it.
I should mention the temperatures though, as it is definitely starting to get cooler as we sail south. Gone is the oppressive heat and humidity of the Caribbean and equatorial region of South America, and today’s high was only 68 degrees, about the same as it’s expected to be tomorrow when we’re in Puerto Madryn. 68 probably sounds pretty good to those of you who are digging out from the weekend snowstorm in the northeast, but for us it’s a harbinger of much colder weather to come.
It has been a pleasant two days since we left Buenos Aires, with the opportunity to catch up on my reading, attend a couple enrichment lectures and enjoy first rate evening shows. Saturday night we were treated to a marvelous performance by a troupe of Argentines who sang, danced, did rhythmic drumming, and most impressively, twirled bolas. Bolas are throwing weapons made by attaching weights to the ends of long cords. The Argentine gauchos use them to capture cattle and other animals by throwing them and tangling the animals’ legs. I have a photo below, but it doesn’t truly reflect the skill these performers displayed in twirling their bolas.
Today I attended an enrichment lecture by a scientist who uses drones to do 3D mapping of our receding glaciers. He particularly focused on a glacier in Iceland, a country we’ll visit this summer. Hopefully we’ll have better weather than he did on his expedition, when he endured a snowstorm with high winds.
As I mentioned above, tomorrow we’re in Puerto Madryn, a port city in southern Argentina. I’m hoping to see a colony of sea lions that make their home on the coast, but to be honest I’m even more interested in seeing the changing terrain as we continue our southward journey. Where the Tigre delta we visited on Saturday was lush and green, I’m expecting to see something quite different tomorrow. Puerto Madryn is 880 nautical miles from Buenos Aires, and it will be interesting to see another side of Argentina.
I’ll be back tomorrow night to fill you in, but in the meantime we can start the betting on whether we’ll be able to get off the ship when we reach the Falklands on Thursday. Port Stanley doesn’t have a pier that can dock ships of any size, meaning that we will have to anchor in the harbor and take tenders, possibly our own lifeboats, to go ashore. The forecast for Thursday is for winds of 25-35 miles per hour, and I suspect the captain will face the same calculation he had to make at Devil’s Island, where he ultimately decided that it wasn’t safe to tender in. Still, that’s for Thursday, and we have another adventure in front of us tomorrow. See you then.
That’s the Celebrity Eclipse, which left Buenos Aires when we did and sailed along side us for several hours yesterday on its way to Antarctica. Celebrity is a slightly more upscale line also owned by Royal Caribbean’s parent company. So, while the Eclipse isn’t exactly a sister ship of ours, it’s probably fair to call her a cousin.
If today was any indication, the Roaring Forties deserve their name. While we had a beautiful, sunny day today, it was very windy.
This photo doesn’t do these performers justice, but they were twirling two bolas at once, crisscrossing them and doing tricks that were simply amazing.
We had a gorgeous sunset last night, so of course we dashed outside and found someone to take our picture with it in the background.
This is my archenemy, the desserts in the Windjammer cafe. They have several options every lunch and dinner, and they’re all delicious. I’m trying to limit my intake, but with very mixed success. I’ll do a whole post on the food on a sea day when not much is going on.
I realized that I haven’t included any photos of the towel animals that are a staple of the cruise industry. I’m not quite sure what this one is, but it’s cute.
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