Join Pete and Judy on their first Seabourn Cruise to Antarctica

[galeforce9]

4 minutes ago, Stickman1990 said:

Wonder what's happening on this cruise - hopefully everything is ok

Anyone got any friends on board - have they heard from them?

 

It has ended and the Christmas cruise has started but posting ms have stopped; I guess for travel and Christmas! 

[Fletcher]

I was hoping for some sort of wrap-up from both Floris and Pete & Judy.  It does seem to have been a cruise with a few problems but also with some lovely weather early on in Antarctica and of course that unexpected visit to New Island in the Falklands.  However, neither of our two bloggers mentioned sailing through the Lemaire Channel (aka Kodak Alley) or the Gerlache Strait.  It would be nice to know exactly what happened.

 

The Quest is now sailing straight for South Georgia. As yet no one has posted from this,  apart from the Seabourn expedition staff and their corporate-speak.  

 

Christmas here in the UK will be much less exciting than last year's but we have the Amazon jungle and the Galapagos to look forward to next month.

Edited December 23, 2018 by Fletcher

[The-Inside-Cabin]

I am in Buenos Aires.....will be continuing this series as time permits....more to come!

[galeforce9]

Fletcher. Enjoy your cruise to the amazon and Galapagos.  Hope you will be posting somewhere   

 

On the November cruise last year the lemaire channel wasn’t navigable but we got a good look at the entrance one evening! 

 

We went up and down the gerlache strait plenty. 

 

Well, my next cruise is the northern lights, so happy Christmas everyone.  

 

[Gwtr]

Nicely done. Love the concept not to mention the information.

[CruiseVivaLady]

On 12/10/2018 at 6:13 AM, The-Inside-Cabin said:

Day 22 - Antarctica Day 1- Dec 10^th

I will be posting out of sequence – jumping ahead to share some of the current Antarctica pictures.   I will backfill with more detail later.

We passed our first iceberg at 5:15 AM.  This one was pretty big but didn’t have a name.

Second Iceberg appeared at 7:30 AM – was 15 NM long and is named A57A

We saw this smaller iceberg around 5:15 AM

 

It was about 32 degrees with 30 knots of wind - wind chill about 14 degrees 

Your story is a pleasure to follow. Thanks for sharing.  This unnamed iceberg looks like a Borg ship from Star Trek. I therefore dub thee “BORG”. 

[The-Inside-Cabin]

Day 26 - Yankee Harbour - Antarctica Day 5 - 14 December, 2018

At the daily recap yesterday, Iggy hinted that the weather we had so far was exceptional and that we would probably return to more normal conditions soon. Overcast skies and choppy seas greeted us when we woke up this morning and the visibility was poor.

Our final landing spot was Yankee Harbour, shown here in relation to South America

Satellite picture of Yankee Harbour landing sites

View of prospective landing spots from the ship after the rest of the Zodiac landings were canceled

 

Yankee Harbour was our destination today and we were in position around 7 AM. The plan was to drop off the guests inside Yankee Harbour in a protected bay and then guests would have the option to walk about 8/10 of a mile down a small peninsula where they would be picked up by another zodiac and taken back to the ship.

 

NOTE: RED was the first group this morning at 8 AM and our group – Purple – was scheduled for 12:30 PM. The first group tends to go early, so its best to be ready by 7:45 AM when you are in the first group. The groups rotate departure times from day to day, but they rotate in a unpredictable manner - bouncing around - but every group will be assigned each position at least once during the cruise, you just can’t necessarily predict what the group order will be the next day. The group order appears in the Daily Herald and is announced during the daily briefing the evening before.

 

Soon after we stopped moving and started to hover, the expedition teams had launched the Zodiacs and I watched them zip across the water to the expected landing spots. As you would expect, the Zodiacs go a lot faster when then are not transporting passengers.

 

Landings Cancelled

 

White was the first group today and they were called down about 7:45 AM and were soon on their way. The best vantage point today was up in the Observation Bar on Deck 10. Cloudy skies and a brisk wind didn’t make the day look too promising and sure enough, after about an hour, Jan announced that the next group – Red was being held up pending Iggy’s further assessment of the conditions. The Red group was advised to stay in The Club as they may be allowed to go ashore at any moment. Another 30 minutes later Jan announced that all Zodiacs were being recalled and the rest of the landings were cancelled. Jan went on to say that once Iggy was back on the ship he would confer with the Captain with an alternate plan for the day.

After all the Zodiacs were safely onboard, Iggy announced that we would be sailing to Deception Island, arriving in the early afternoon, for some scenic cruising for an hour or so before we would turn north and head across the Drake Passage.

 

Deception Island

 

As we approached Deception Island, rain and mist reduced visibility further so there wasn’t much to see as the island looked dreary and gray without any sunlight. Deception Island is a doughnut shaped island with a small gap on one side that provides access to the sheltered interior. Apparently, it was difficult to locate this entrance and was therefore named Deception Island.

Christopher Graham, Quest’s executive chef, set up a waffle station in the Observation Bar, serving the long, cylindrical waffles that we had during other scenic cruising events earlier in the cruise. People would briefly step outside on Deck 10 to take a photo and look at the scenery before they scurried back inside due to the inclement conditions.

As we turned around to head north, the wind increased to over 70 knots and the Captain announced that all exterior decks were closed, and no one should attempt to open any doors.

 

A “Polar Plunge”, where any interested person could jump into the swimming pool which was filled with 33-degree sea water, was scheduled for 5:00 PM but was cancelled and would be rescheduled.

 

Seeing other ships has been rare, but we spotted the National Geographic Orion heading south as we started heading north. The Orion only has 100 passengers and ships with fewer than 200 passengers have more options for landing sites and will typically land at two different spots each day rather than one – as is the case with the Quest and larger ships.

 

While walking thru The Club later, I noticed that there is a juke-box near the stage that will play songs from a wide selection throughout the lounge. Once a live band appears, the juke box is disabled.

 

The deck motion was significant throughout the day and you had to be careful when eating in the Colonnade to keep your glasses on a placemat or napkin, otherwise they may start to slide when the ship took a particularly steep roll.

 

There wasn’t much to recap at the daily 6:30 PM recap, but Iggy showed a chart from passageweather.com that gave us a look at the sea conditions we would experience as we headed across Drake Passage. We were expected to find waves in the 15-20-foot range with high winds for the next 24 – 36 hours. One of the expedition members presented a humorous brief on the science of Penguin Poo, which was funny for a few minutes, but went on a little too long.

 

We didn’t see much impact on daily activity attendance due to the sea state, so I gather than most folks have been accustomed to the constant motion and were taking it all in stride.

 

One of the issues with having the daily briefing at 6:30 is that when it lets out after 7PM, everyone floods to The Restaurant and The Colonnade resulting in longer waits to be seated than otherwise.

 

Colonnade for dinner

We ate dinner in The Colonnade this evening where the theme was Thailand food. Featured entrees were Thai Green Chicken Curry and Grilled Carved Beef Sirloin. The only tables remaining when we were ready to be seated this evening were the high-top tables in the back, which were fine.

 

Half way thru dinner we were joined by singer Anthony Stuart Lloyd. We had a wonderful time chatting with him until we had finished our deserts and headed off to The Club for some drinks before the evening show.

 

Martin Beaumont

 

Martin Beaumont was the headliner in the Grand Salon and he put on a wonderful show. He has a great knack for injecting some local humor from the current cruise into his show.

 

Back in our suite, we discovered two Penguin cookies and they looked very nice – so nice we didn’t end up eating them for a couple of days and then they were too dry.

[Hign n Dry]

Well done Pete, I reckon you nailed it. We were fellow purple people from 600 up on the bow. Ah the memories !! Where looking at doing the Antarctic again but this time include South Georgia, just unfinished business and we need to cap it off. Great Job !!