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Published: January 24th 2013
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Our last full day at sea as this voyage comes to a close Friday. Today has been a quiet day for the most part, as we just rest up and take stock of getting off the ship and onto our next leg of the tour in Buenos Aires early Friday morning. We are experiencing very heavy seas and gale force winds again, so we were bundled up while reading on the sun deck as we are moving across a very deep portion of the Atlantic at present. As they are cross swells, the ship is rolling a tremendous amount, even with all of the stabilizers’ out. Thank God we have those or there would be a LOT of sea sick people on-board. The ship’s Dr. told us this morning that a very large number of people have been experiencing colds aboard (including us) because in a period of a month we have traveled through the tropics to the cold bottom of the world and back now into the tropics. We competed in a “ship making” contest out of scavenged stuff as two teams and won a first place medal, plus a six-pack of MGD to boot. A six-pack of beer costs
about $25 aboard ship, and our friend Jenny spent about 25 hours making this beautiful sailing ship, so she made $1 per hour, but she is a very talented person. Our gold medal will come home and go into Carol’s trophy case with her running medals. Steve got his tour of the Star Princess behind the scenes this morning, and since cameras are not allowed for security reasons, he has to settle for a few group photos taken with ship “Big Shots” around the confines of the ship. He came away thoroughly impressed by what he saw however. Everything from the seven galleys, to a massive laundry system, to the medical systems on-board, to the engine room control station, huge engines and propeller shafts, and to the bridge, he was amazed at the amount of automation involved in running this moving hotel of 2,600 guests and almost half as many crew members. One of his favorite parts was the “chain locker” and seeing the huge anchors and ropes they use to tie this beast up at all of the ports we visit. The chain locker is just below the fifth deck where many of the crew people live, and one
of them describes the experience of hearing the anchors being let go at 0600 in the morning as something akin to an earth-shattering earthquake that throws you out of your bunk. Of course, in the comfy back end and high portions of the ship, we hear nothing. With the exception of the highest ranking officers on-board, being a crew member is nothing like the experience passengers receive aboard this ship. Crew dogs live in cramped, non-windowed rooms with two or more to a cabin, and work long hours almost every day. It is, indeed, a different calling.
Sometime before we dock we will be passing over a large piece of WWII history in the Rio de la Plata just about 9 miles outside Montevideo harbor, as we pass over the hulk of the German pocket battleship Graff Spee. In 1939 she was damaged and chased into the harbor by three British cruisers, and when Herr Hitler ordered her Captain to come back out and fight the three cruisers to the death, the Captain (Langsdorf) set her crew loose in Montevideo, scuttled the ship in the harbor, and committed suicide.
At 2145 Star Princess moved into the
outside approaches of the Rio de la Plata on a course of 27 degrees true at 18 knots as we slow down for our approach to the shallows, and the seas have mitigated substantially.
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