Day At Sea
As we had a long and restful night’s sleep, our faithful ship churned steadily westward. Mid-morning we gathered in the lounge for Rikki Swenson’s presentation, “Thinking Out-of-the-Shoebox: Creative Ideas for Photographers,” where she showed us many stimulating ideas of ways for displaying and sharing our photographic images.
Our course was now leading us back across the Scotia Sea toward the Falkland Islands on a course heading a bit north of due west. Pintado petrels had resumed their playful role as our escorts sailing into the wind. On the bridge, amid an impressive array of sophisticated electronics with radar screens, digital displays, GPS latitudes and longitudes ticking our changing position across this remote reach of the planet, there on the chart table lay a traditional, paper, nautical chart with our course line drawn in pencil, leading from South Georgia across the sheet to the far edge of the left margin. What would Magellan have thought of the edge of a nautical chart? In the center of the bridge, in a most prominent position, is the age-old tool that certainly would have been familiar to Magellan. The ship’s compass. Our heading today: 281 degrees. On our very modern, 21st century bridge is one other most integral thing that Magellan was certainly traveling with, a ship’s officer standing watch. Through all the hours as we slept, and now throughout the day, an officer is on the bridge keeping a watchful eye. Crossing these southern waters at night, or in fog, a seaman joins them as additional look-out for icebergs. The captain, officers and crew took us across this wild ocean, navigated into and out of every bay, harbor, and icy fjord that we visited on South Georgia, and now they were guiding our ship back across the span of ocean to the Falklands, and on to southern Argentina. We watch the endless waves swing by, we scrutinize the charts, and gawk at the multitude of numbers on the digital screens. These folks actually know the significance of all those numbers, bearings, and buttons. Today, on a restful day at sea, we had time to reflect on the significance of these mariners who brought us to magical South Georgia, and now are delivering us back to port.
After lunch we were treated to a fascinating presentation by National Geographic Photographer, Flip Nicklin titled “Whales, A Changing View.” He showed us many of his beautiful and unusual images that most of us first encountered gazing at the pages of National Geographic magazine. Later in the afternoon we heard about the colorful history of “The Little Red Ship,” as Brent Houston, the Captain and guests related stories of the famous expedition ship, the Lindblad Explorer, originally commissioned by Lars-Eric Lindblad, the pioneer of ship-based adventure travel.
As we had a long and restful night’s sleep, our faithful ship churned steadily westward. Mid-morning we gathered in the lounge for Rikki Swenson’s presentation, “Thinking Out-of-the-Shoebox: Creative Ideas for Photographers,” where she showed us many stimulating ideas of ways for displaying and sharing our photographic images.
Our course was now leading us back across the Scotia Sea toward the Falkland Islands on a course heading a bit north of due west. Pintado petrels had resumed their playful role as our escorts sailing into the wind. On the bridge, amid an impressive array of sophisticated electronics with radar screens, digital displays, GPS latitudes and longitudes ticking our changing position across this remote reach of the planet, there on the chart table lay a traditional, paper, nautical chart with our course line drawn in pencil, leading from South Georgia across the sheet to the far edge of the left margin. What would Magellan have thought of the edge of a nautical chart? In the center of the bridge, in a most prominent position, is the age-old tool that certainly would have been familiar to Magellan. The ship’s compass. Our heading today: 281 degrees. On our very modern, 21st century bridge is one other most integral thing that Magellan was certainly traveling with, a ship’s officer standing watch. Through all the hours as we slept, and now throughout the day, an officer is on the bridge keeping a watchful eye. Crossing these southern waters at night, or in fog, a seaman joins them as additional look-out for icebergs. The captain, officers and crew took us across this wild ocean, navigated into and out of every bay, harbor, and icy fjord that we visited on South Georgia, and now they were guiding our ship back across the span of ocean to the Falklands, and on to southern Argentina. We watch the endless waves swing by, we scrutinize the charts, and gawk at the multitude of numbers on the digital screens. These folks actually know the significance of all those numbers, bearings, and buttons. Today, on a restful day at sea, we had time to reflect on the significance of these mariners who brought us to magical South Georgia, and now are delivering us back to port.
After lunch we were treated to a fascinating presentation by National Geographic Photographer, Flip Nicklin titled “Whales, A Changing View.” He showed us many of his beautiful and unusual images that most of us first encountered gazing at the pages of National Geographic magazine. Later in the afternoon we heard about the colorful history of “The Little Red Ship,” as Brent Houston, the Captain and guests related stories of the famous expedition ship, the Lindblad Explorer, originally commissioned by Lars-Eric Lindblad, the pioneer of ship-based adventure travel.
