Day 15 – At Sea – clock set forward one hour at 0200

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Slept in late again as the Star Princess homed in on La Serena/Coquimbo, Chile. More documents to complete for our day off the ship tomorrow in La Serena. We are seriously getting rocked as we steam south, and the sea state has gone from moderate to heavy, and the Officer of the Deck says we are reaching 20-foot seas. Also Force 8 winds are not helping. However, Mr. Patch is now out and in force which is helping. Spent the day learning about the Star Princess through a series of lectures and tours of the ship, which is just amazing. There are a bunch of titled and untitled photos from the day under the heading “About the Star Princess” for those who have an interest, but they are copies of power point foils that cover everything from photos of the bottom of the ship in dry dock, to a huge number of amazing facts about the ship itself, and just how ecologically designed everything onboard. One of the things we did learn is that the stabilizers remove about 90% of the “pitch and yaw” rolling of the ship at 18 knots (which our present speed), but do nothing for the vertical axis movement, which is significant. Steve apologizes for the photo quality, but the ship is rolling so hard the screens hanging from the ceilings in the theaters are moving in large arcs.



Another thing we learned is that every bit of trash if incinerated at extremely high heat, every piece of clash is pulverized into ask to be re-cycled once we dock at various ports, we make 1,800 tons of fresh water every day, and all human waste is biologically handled on a 24-hour cycle.

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