We’ve been at sea in the Tasman Sea for the last two days and we have one more day tomorrow. The part of the world we’re traveling through is called the “Roaring Forties,” so today I’ll write a little about that and what we’re experiencing.
The Roaring Forties are an area in the southern hemisphere between 40° and 50° S latitude. Because of the rotation of the Earth and the way in which air currents move, this part of the planet is known for strong westerly winds. In contrast to the northern hemisphere where there are significant land masses in the corresponding latitudes, here south of the Equator there aren’t many. There are really only Tasmania, New Zealand, and the southern tip of South America. Consequently, there’s nothing to break up the current and strong winds often blow.
We’ve been doing some significant rolling and today we even have some pitching fore and aft. I dined at the captain’s table last night and he told us that we had actually altered our course and gone about 150 miles out of our way to avoid stronger winds and higher seas. A ship that was behind us in Milford Sound, the Azamara Journey, on her way to Tasmania reported experiencing 10 meter (nearly 33 feet) seas. Today at a little gathering for passengers staying on a little longer the Captain said we’d gone back on course. He joked that the Chief Engineer had lost his bonus for fuel conservation.
I like sea days and they have had a lot of activities going on. There’s a lecturer who gave a talk one day about the war in Ukraine from the Russian perspective and today he spoke from the Ukrainian point of view. For the bridge players they have been having morning and evening sessions. I don’t think there’s a bridge host on so it’s not formal. There’s a speaker who will be talking about two big rugby teams that are apparently big rivals. I’m clueless about anything to do with rugby. I don’t think I’ll be going to that. Yesterday we had a Battle of the Restaurants which was a little like Chopped. Three chefs were given mystery ingredients and 20 minutes to prepare a dish. The captain, the doctor and the hotel manager judged. Today they had a Baggo tournament. I didn't know what that was but evidently it's cornhole and I have heard of that. This afternoon there's a line dancing class. There is also going to be a scavenger hunt. The upshot is that if you want to, you can be busy all day long.
For the last three days we’ve been playing cumulative trivia and Ship for Brains is in the lead. (Yeah!!) Tomorrow will be the last day and things will get really interesting because at the end of the regular rounds of play we’ll have one question where we can bet as many of our points as we like in an effort to win. That’s when some people go wild with coming up with a strategy about how many points to wager. Al always used to say “No guts, no glory,” so he was ready to lay it all on the line. I don’t know what my teammates will be like. We’ll see and, after all, we are playing for such good prizes, like an adapter plug.
I think I’ve blethered on enough talking about absolutely nothing. I must say that I’ve met some of the nicest people on this leg of my voyage. I had lunch with one of the guest entertainers today and she is one of the most down-to-earth people I’ve ever had the pleasure of talking with. I think the reason she’s so good is that she can make a connection with her audience.
It's a little later and we've really been bouncing around. I looked at an App I have and it's saying that we're experiencing winds of 37 mph with gusts up to close to 54 mph. The seas look to be about 18 feet. Walking around especially on the higher decks is challenging.
Just to add something visual I'm uploading some random photos.
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| These are my great cabin stewardesses Brenda and Katarina. They work so hard to keep me all squared away. |
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| These and the next two are from the Battle of the Restaurants |
1 comment:
Very cool! Lots of fun activities onboard—- good luck on the last day of trivia.
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