Sign In
Blogs from Oceans and Seas - page 4
Advertisement
January 15th 2013
Did you ever wonder about how much stuff gets "processed" in one day on a cruise ship? Well, we had a chance to do a "behind the scenes" tour of the Star Princess on our trip and we learned some very interesting things.... The Star Princess is not Princess's largest ship; nor the smallest, but she is pretty big. At almost 1,000 feet long and 109,000 registered gross tons, she holds a crew of 1,100 and another 3,100 passengers. She burns about 39,000 gallons of bunker fuel every day (About 4800 tons for our entire trip -- and her tanks hold 750,000 U.S. gallons -- Internet reads that bunker fuel is about $600 per ton, so a fuel bill of about $2.9 Million for the trip), makes her own fresh water (but stores 750,000 ... read more
January 14th 2013
On this trip we visited many ports in a number of different countries. Cruise ships, we found out, only dock at nice terminal facilities in major ports like San Francisco. In most other ports, we were "parked" right into the mix of cargo ships, tankers, naval ships, and container ships of all sizes and from countries around the world. Steve took advantage of this opportunity with his camera gear. If you like ships, machines and naval weapons, check out this photo gallery!... read more
January 13th 2013
Broadcasting Exchange The grey cloud that hung over St Helena as the RMS anchored in James Bay rather reflected my mood returning to the island after a short but lovely Christmas trip to Blighty. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to return to the island that has been host to my geriatric gap-year but, rather, mixed feelings about returning only for a few weeks to the truncated project that I have led since August 2011. The professional project I have led has been (so far) a great success with school colleagues working so hard to change and improve their practice. The improvement has been so remarkable that we are expecting 70% of pupils to be level 4 and above in English and mathematics (Level 4 being the age related expectation) compared to 50% in 2012 and ... read more
January 9th 2013
Well, this is the last day of our cruise per se, a day at sea on the way to the port of Valpariso, Chile. We will have a day in Valpariso and then will head home from Santiago. We sleep in a bit. In the morning, we receive instructions on disembarkation procedures for tomorrow. As mentioned, we have booked a bus tour that will take us through Valpariso and the surrounding area and eventually deposit us at the airport in Santiago. Today we attend three lectures: the history of scurvy, bird ringing (or banding), and magic. The latter deserves some explanation. Devlin, the magician who entertained us previously, puts on an afternoon workshop on simple magic tricks or "actions," as he calls them. He shows us nine different tricks, demonstrating each one first and then explaining ... read more
January 3rd 2013
The fog has mostly lifted by morning, but it is still very variable. This will be a complete day at sea as we negotiate the Drake Passage between Antarctica and South America. We expect to pass close to Cape Horn sometime in the evening on our way to Ushuaia, Argentina. As the day goes by, the waves grow higher and higher, and by the afternoon the swells are running up to 30 ft. Because of our direction, conditions are not as violent as the passage to the Falklands, when the ship was bashing into the oncoming waves, but the ship is certainly pitching significantly. Dishes and occasionally people go sliding to the floor in the dining room. One basically has to keep a hand on something solid all the time to avoid making a spectacle. Later ... read more
Advertisement
January 2nd 2013
Bonne Année 2013 à tous Saison d’hiver 2012-2013 Bonjour à tous, Bienvenue sur notre blogue de voyage pour l’année 2012-2013. Encore cette saison nous voyagerons sur notre voilier Grand Style dans les îles Vierges et surtout nous ferons le voyage jusqu’à Grenade ou nous y laisserons le bateau à la mi-avril pour la saison d’été. Vous vous souviendrez dans nos blogues précédents je vous donnais des nouvelles de ma sœur Louise qui avait le cancer et bien elle a perdu son combat le 14 octobre dernier. Elle s’est éteinte tranquillement à la maison de soins palliatifs Victor-Gadbois de Beloeil. Triste réalité…. Entendre et vivre ces épreuves nous motive à profiter de la vie le plus possible. Et bien, pour nous c’est une nouvelle saison qui commence, ce sera la septième. C’était notre deuxième mise à l’eau ... read more
January 2nd 2013
The captain wakes us this morning around 8 am once again. We have arrived during the night at Paradise Harbour, a natural shelter formed by two islands and the mainland. This location, delineated by mountains and glaciers on all sides and sheltered from stormy seas, must have seemed a relative paradise to whomever named it. It is a brilliant sunny day with wispy clouds, and the beauty of the surroundings once again takes our breath away. There are two research stations here: Brown Station, an Argentinian facility, and a Chilean station named for a Chilean president who was the first head of state to visit the Antarctic continent. Both stations have interesting histories. Brown Station is famous for having once been burned to the ground by a scientist who went crazy. The Chilean station stands on ... read more
Day 28 – At Sea – Set the clock ahead one hour at 0200. We are now only two hours behind London time
Published: January 24th 2013Oceans and Seas » Atlantic
January 2nd 2013
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 ... read more
December 31st 2012
Things calmed down a bit during the night as we get closer to the mainland, and we have left the cold and wet weather behind as we move back toward the equator. We still have 15 – 20 foot seas, but very little wind. Although out next stop is in Puerto Madryn on the Argentinian coast, we heard a weather report that our following destination, Montevideo (Uruguay), was experiencing 95 degree F temps at 1000 this morning. We have decided Puerto Madryn will be an internet/catch-up day, as it is New Year’s Day here as well, and most places will be closed for the holiday. One note of interest from the Navigator’s log last night: The Star Princess has aboard a “NACOS Integrated Navigation Bridge System,” which utilizes three GPS systems that keep us within 2-3 ... read more
December 30th 2012
We had a particularly good sleep last night, lulled by the gentle rolling of the ocean. We wake to a grey, overcast day. At breakfast, we enjoy the aerobatics of the petrels and albatrosses as they wheel and dive alongside the ship. We are clearly picking up more and more seabirds every day. And then it starts to snow outside! I ponder how interesting it is to have left the snow at home in the north and to travel so far south that it is snowing again. The morning is spent on a couple of interesting lectures, one on penguins in all their variety, and the other on Antarctic explorer Ernest Shakleton, another name I remember from stories I read as a boy. Among his adventures was being marooned with his crew on Elephant Island, which ... read more
