11/28/2022

                                                            Sun rise over rough water

                                                                      Position of the ship 

 

Sea day.  By now we know pretty much what the drill is: lectures, art, dancing, food.  A person could get used to this, especially the food – having the variety of good and tasty items, waited on expertly, and (best of all) being able to walk away from the table without getting the check!

 

At noon on sea days Captain Peter gives us the vital statistics of the voyage.  Here is a sample:

 

·      Location is 28 degrees 16 minutes South; 47 degrees 14 minutes West

·      We are traveling at 19 knots (and hit 21 knots last night with a following wind)

·      The winds are 5 – 9 on the Beaufort scale (whatever that is)

·      The air temperature is 72 degrees Fahrenheit (and whatever that is in Celsius that I didn’t note)

·      The sea temperature is 73 degrees Fahrenheit (and whatever that is in Celsius that I didn’t note)

·      We are 50 nautical miles from the coast of Brazil

·      We have traveled 408 nautical miles from Rio 

·      We have 742 nautical miles to Buenos Aires

 

There is an art exhibition tomorrow and Shirley’s and Ann’s work will be featured (along with many others). Paul has been instructed to put that on his Plan of the Day (POD) and will comply.

 

The afternoon was spent watching the sea and reading up on the Explorers Lounge.  The ship has stabilizers and so the rocking could be a lot worse.  (Note to self: find out how stabilizers work on large cruise ships.  Or just ask google and voila: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stabilizer_(ship) ) The nice thing about Ocean cruises on Viking is that there is always a space where one can be alone with a book or a journal with one’s thoughts and ponderings.  Paul pondered about stabilizers until he decided he had no clue about them and went back to finishing the book about the Geologist, Dave Hopkins.  (Dave did the science that proved the land bridge between Asia and North America.)

 

Our evening meal was at the Chef’s Table, haute cuisine aboard this ship.  It was Mexico night and so our 5 courses had a Mexican theme.  A fine way to spend the evening.

 

At 9:30 PM we noticed that the stars were out and clear (low humidity) so Paul, Bob and our friend Pete went up to deck 9 and wondered about where the Magellenic clouds were.  We spotted several candidates, but none stood out.  The Crescent moon ducked in and out of the wispy clouds that blew across the ship’s path.  Our resident Astronomer later verified that we did indeed spot the LMC (Large Magellanic Cloud).

 

After a call of nature around 12:30 AM, Paul stepped out on the veranda and snapped a picture of the Southern Cross.  (“When you see the Southern Cross for the first time, you understand why you came this way…” Stephen Stills)

This photo was taken at 12:39 looking ~150 degrees South while at approximate latitude 30 degrees South, 48 degrees West, some ways off the shore of Southern Brazil.  The siting has been verified by the on board Astronomer Paul Delaney.  Note the pointer stars Alpha Centauri and Beta are below the hazy horizon.  Also note the "false Cross" above the real Cross.