Today is boarding day for the Seaventure. After breakfast we hand off our luggage for transit to the boat. Checkout for the hotel is at 10 but we don’t leave for the boat until mid-afternoon. We snagged a nice spot in the lobby to hang out and work on the blog. It is amazing the amount of time documenting the trip takes but it really is the only way we can possibly remember what we do. Around 3:00 a bus takes us to the harbor and we finally board the ship. Yeah!!
The Seaventure was built in 1990 by Mitsubishi Shipyard in Kobe, Japan, and refurbished in 2021. She is rated ‘Ice Class 1A Super’, the highest available and has retractable fin stabilizers (a great feature in the Antarctic waters). The crew size is 90, including the expedition staff. On this voyage are some 130 passengers.
Our cabin is quite nice with a desk, tv, & small balcony. In the room are our Polar Latitudes Expedition jackets and muck boots provided as part of the cruise. Mary’s jacket doesn’t fit. Evidently, P.L. changed the manufacturer of the women’s jackets and nearly half the women on board also need to make an exchange. Also in the room are our life vests and we participated in a required and very thorough lifeboat drill at our assigned mustering stations.
We’ve got an interesting group of fellow passengers. There are quite a few Americans – couples from the west coast, two from Colorado, and some folks from Virginia. There are also two groups from Canada, a large party from Israel, and a dozen or so Chinese.
The only formal meal (sit down waiter service) each day is dinner. Table service and buffet are available for breakfast & lunch. Sherwin is our dining room steward, Jamie the beverage girl. They take good care of us.
After dinner is the introduction of the expedition team and ship staff. It looks to be an incredible group. Every evening will be a daily recap of the day’s activities and a review of plans for the next.
Hannah (Expedition Team Leader) lets us know we should expect some ‘choppy’ seas and suggests preventative medicine. We think we’re well prepared and have brought motion sickness patches, ‘bonine’ tablets (meclizine hydrochloride), and ‘Sea-Bands’ (nausea relief wrist bands). The ships doctor discusses the pros and cons of the patch vs. tablets for motion sickness. We elect to go with the pill and the bands. Hannah also passed on a tip for navigating the corridors in sporty weather: ‘Walk like a fat Penguin’ – sung to the tune of the Bangle’s ‘Walk like an Egyptian’.
This is the last cruise of the season. Traditionally this cruise crosses the infamous Drake Passage at the beginning of the trip. For reasons not known to us, we are taking the opposite routing and heading to the Falkland Islands first. It’s about two sailing days from Ushuaia to the West Falklands on traditionally rough seas. The first few hours are a breeze as the ship passes through the sheltered Beagle Channel. Things were still calm as we retired for the evening.