Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Ride ‘em, Cowboy!

03/11

We could not enter Milford Sound (01/11) because the winds (70 mph) did not die down as predicted. Sad. It was the most beautiful sound of all, reportedly. But it had a very narrow, treacherous opening, so we could understand why it was canceled. The Captain joked and said that now the pilot gets a free three-day cruise to Tasmania. I guess the pilot boat was at the exit to the sound and not at the beginning.


Milford Sound in the background of this photo. That’s all we got to see of it. The wind was blowing at 70mph. Notice the rainbow in the spray from the whitecaps.

And so began our traversing of the Tasman Sea across the “Roaring 40s” (latitude). It got VERY rough. Walking became difficult. Moments of almost weightlessness, following by bone crushing pressure. But it was complete mayhem in the dining room! The ship was rolling from side to side, followed by pitching from front to back, followed by some really strange lurching. It was the lurching that caused the problems. Many dinners went on the floor. Glass was shattering everywhere. The dining room started out only about two-thirds full, but was nearly a ghost town by the end. I’m sad to say we ‘lost’ Aunt Brigitte. She didn’t get the Bonine onboard soon enough. But you know it’s rough when your dining room steward offers you a seasickness pill and takes one himself. He declared, “This is the first time I’ve been in the Australian Sea, and it’s very rough.” Yes, Alberto, it is.
There is a liquor store onboard. It was a casualty of the rough seas too. Many, many bottles of liquor were broken all over the floor. (One wonders why they weren’t more prepared for it.) All of the other shops were closed after the liquor disaster. The rumor mill works just as well on the high seas as it does on land, and I can’t confirm this, but we were told the shop guy in the liquor store was injured by the broken glass bottles. Poor guy.
The sea was rough all day yesterday (02/11). There was no fresh-squeezed OJ for breakfast because there were no glasses because ‘too many were broken last night.” EEK. My lip gloss rolled off the desk, the desk drawer kept opening on its own, a heavy, glass kiwi I bought as a souvenir fell over, and the window curtain kept closing itself! Good thing we moved the ice bucket, glasses, and tray to the floor the night before along with the fruit basket. Although Dad did say we had a glass escape during the night and was rolling around when he got up.
It was formal night. I had to not wear my pretty shoes! (Tragedy. The Captain asked the women to wear ‘sensible, low-heel shoes’ for the evening.) Dinner was much better than yesterday. Maybe the stewards learned how to do the “Rough Seas Rhumba”.
Dad and I were invited to ‘after-dinner drinks’ with the Captain and the Hotel Manager. We did not enjoy it. We’re not cut out to be hob-nobbers, I guess. But I did enjoy asking the Captain how high the seas really were the day before. “12-15 feet with an occasional bigger one in the sequence.” We’ve never been in seas that high before! The Tasman Sea is certainly living up to its reputation.
The show was supposed to be the cast in a singing-dancing show. Instead a banjo player was substituted. I went to bed; the others went to play games. (Heard the banjo-ing was pretty good from someone the next day. Darn.)
Today the seas continued to be rough. The Captain said this morning that we should be out of it by afternoon. Then he came on this afternoon and said, “Sorry. The forecasts were wrong. We will continue to be in these rough conditions until later this evening.”
The cast show has once again been canceled. We will be seeing A JUGGLER tonight. I hope he’s been practicing on a moving stage! Could be really interesting.
04/11
What a relief it was to awaken when the seas were flat as a pancake, on our way in to the Burnie dock today!
The juggler was hilarious, and the rockin’ and rollin’ barely seemed to affect his act. In fact, it was probably funnier. He did a little dance move when it was rocking pretty good and said, “I just don’t understand why the dancers couldn’t perform. I’m dancing just fine!”
We enjoyed our day in Burnie. We saw a whale, Tasmanian Devils, Wombats, Koalas and Kangaroos, oh my! (And too many others to list. Burnie deserves its own post.)
Tonight our dining room steward was rushing dinner soooooooooo fast, I finally asked him why. The Captain gave us free drinks—the entire dining room. (We’ve been in Code Red for ten days—which also deserves its own post—and we’ve been greatly inconvenienced by it.) We had daquiris and Pina Coladas—virgin, of course. Anyway, the reason the steward was rushing dinner was so many glasses were broken the other night that there weren’t enough glasses for both sittings at dinner. So they had to have time to wash the glasses from the first sitting (5:45) to be prepared for the second sitting at 8pm. Heh.
I’m pleased to report that the seas are calm in spite of being in ANOTHER notoriously rough stretch of ocean.

2 comments:

JimO said...

Hmmm. I said before I liked the bit of rough weather we saw, but that's pushing it. I DO remember being the last one to leave dinner the first night out in rough weather, with dishes and silverware crashing to the floor while I polished off another dessert.

I'm really enjoying all the pics, so thanks for taking them AND posting them!

Tami said...

I second that! Thanks for taking them and posting all these great pics!

The juggler sounds like he's got a cute sense of humor. Glad that you survived the rockin' and rollin'. The swells don't sound so swell...you'd just have to shoot me and put me out of my misery, I'm afraid. I think all of you are very brave!

An interesting problem...to have so many glasses break that you have to wash them in a hurry for the next dinner shift. Glad we don't have to do that in real life!

I LOVE hearing about all your adventures. Love the posts and YOU!!