We woke up around 8:30 to small bits of ice floating by our ship. As we were dressing, we turned on the ships channel to hear the announcements. We were only a few miles away from Elephant Island, most noted for being when Shackleton and his crew spent the winter they were marooned in Antarctica. (I saw the movie).
Soon after that, we started seeing icebergs. Serious ones.
This one's serious!!
We had a quick breakfast at Sabbattini's, and then headed out to the Promenade deck. By this time, we'd arrived at Elephant Island, west side, and the captain stopped the ship, and started doing the slow turns they do when scenic cruising. It was amazing. Very stark and very beautiful.
Yup this is us at Elephant Island.
During our photo taking, we also saw some whales.
We think the little black dots are penguins, but we're not sure. The naturalist kept pointing out wildlife but you'd need good binoculars to see it. We did better with whales and seals in Alaska.
I took a break as we turned to take a line dance class. It wasn't very crowded, so the instructor taught a couple dance rather than a line dance. After class Glen joined us (we I was chatting with Carol and Eric) and told us that the ship was moving to the other side of the island, so the next "event" would be at 2pm. We took another walk around the deck, and then headed back to our room to watch the sail from the east side of Elephant Island. We also ordered some lunch. Because we have a suite, we could order from the dining room menu and we did.
At about 1:40 we went downstairs again, and I checked in at the end of the salsa lesson (not our favorite dance). They were learning the whisk, which is actually a waltz/foxtrot pattern. In this case, they meant flip-flops or fifth position breaks. We then wandered around outside and took even more pictures, this time of the east side of the island.
While wandering around, we ran into Rich and Joan, and they told us to try to get onto the bridge - since we're in a suite we might be able to do it. We asked, and they said to write a letter to the captain. We did, and we'll see if it works. We're not optimistic.
At 3:15 we took a break as we sailed on to Gibbs Island and went to the ballroom review class. Once again, we stayed a bit late to help out our friends. Then we headed to the Patisserie for coffee. We chatted with an Indian couple we'd met at lunch yesterday - they live in London. She's apparently an author and photographer, and she told us about the experience of getting to base camp on K2.
At 5:00 we went back to the room because our friends Linda and Bob were coming over to plan our cruise critic cabin crawl. We had wine and took pictures of Gibbs Island from the balcony.
Then it was time to get ready for dinner, which of course included dancing. We asked the band (one of the best cruise bands we've ever seen - did I already mention that?) if they could do some ballads and they did, so we got to dance two-step which made Glen happy.
After dinner, we joined in on Latin night, which was pretty much all Salsa and Meringue - so after a few dances, we left, got our jackets, and went for a walk on the upper decks. There are near gale force winds, and the temperature is around freezing. It's very, very dark out there, and Glen says now he can see how the Titanic managed to not see the iceberg.
We went back to the room, and opened the balcony door. It was open until about two minutes ago when we decided that even with the door cracked open only, it's really pretty cold in here. So much for listening to the wake at 62 degrees south latitude.
I thought maybe we could put the heat on and leave the door open, but Glen said we probably shouldn't try to heat the great outdoors. And, I wouldn't want to turn the heat on and melt all the polar icecaps. I don't want to be responsible for the final stage of global warming. So the door was closed. It stayed pretty cool though.
Internet is slow right now, and we're not sure if it's because of our location or because receiving the broadcast of the Superbowl on a Jumbotron is sucking all the bandwidth. That's something, if you think about it - here we are, now south of where Shackleton ran into trouble, and they're showing the Superbowl on an outdoor screen. Amazing, really.
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