Silver Explorer is heading back across the Drake passage to Ushuaia, so we have a full day at sea today. The swells are slightly bigger than they were on the way out, and more people seem to be affected by it. I'm feeling fine though, so I've been attending all the lectures and activities that have been put on for us. Apparently there is a large storm now battering the South Shetland Islands (where we were yesterday morning), but we have out run the worst of that weather by turning for Ushuaia at lunchtime yesterday.
Sadly tomorrow is the last day of this cruise and I will have to start packing.
Tomorrow I will probably post some reflections on what this vacation has meant to me, but today is an opportunity to talk about the people - both my fellow passengers and the crew.
I anticipated that the passengers on this cruise would be outgoing and interesting people, and I was not wrong. On Silver Explorer there are no set table assignments, so we sat with different sets of people at almost every meal. As expected most of my fellow passengers were well traveled and had plenty of interesting experiences to relate. I suppose it's not surprising, given that this is an expensive cruise, that most of the passengers were on the older side. However, there were several sets of passengers where an older passenger was being accompanied by a younger relation. I met 2 Father/Daughter pairs, a Mother/Son pair and even a Nephew/Aunt pair. The vast majority of passengers are American of course, and I would say that the second largest group was the Brits. However there was a reasonable sized Australian contingent, some Canadians, French, Swiss and German. There was even a moderate sized group of Russians, although they tended to keep to themselves and required the services of one of our lecturers (Dimitri) for translation. But apart from the Russians I was very impressed with the English skills of the others on board, especially the Germans. By and large I liked everyone I met, although there was one American guy who went around with a sour expression the whole time and seemed to be in a permanently grumpy mood. Fortunately I never ended up at a table with him during the entire voyage. Later on in the voyage Denise had to keep to the cabin for a while due to a bout of vertigo, but I found I had no qualms about roaming the ship by myself and sitting down and chatting with the other passengers that I'd previously met in the dining room. We really were a little society of our own. It was a completely different experience to that of a large cruise ship.
Let me also say a little about the staff. Generally the staff were divided up into 3 roles: The sailors, the "service" personnel, and the expedition staff. I honestly didn't see much of the Captain or his officers. The "service" personnel included our butler, Ashish, the various waiting staff in the dining room and bars, the cleaners, hair dresser, ladies at reception, etc. They were all excellent at their jobs. When we first boarded Silver Explorer we had to have our photos taken. I didn't really understand why at first - since my photo did not turn up on my ship card, but later on I discovered that the staff take the trouble to view all the photos at the beginning of the trip and associate the passenger names with the faces so that they can greet you personally from day 1. Some of the staff fill dual roles. The hair-dresser accompanied us on several shore excursions to help Denise get in and out of the zodiacs. The group I had most interaction with were the expedition staff. These are all experts in their fields of ornithology, marine biology, etc. For example, one of our ornithologists (Dr Danae Sheehan) had worked for the RSPB for many years before joining Silversea, and one of the science "experts" Sherri Bluestein had worked at the US Antarctic base McMurdo for 8 years before becoming joining the expedition staff. Being an expert in your field is not enough though. You have to be personable in order to deal one on one with passengers, you even have to be able to drive a zodiac. Perhaps the most notable thing about the expedition staff was their near obsession with Antarctica. Whilst I enjoyed my holiday here, I can't imagine living here on a more permanent basis (even with the facilities of a luxury ship).
Well that rounds out my entry for today. I don't have any interesting photos because the only thing we can see is sea. When I reach land I will probably post a few albums of photos on Facebook.
Tomorrow we should dock in Ushuaia.
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