Today is a lovely sea day again after our adventures yesterday in Stanley. The sea was reasonably calm with the air temperature a good few notches up on yesterday, as we head north deep out in the open waters of the Southern Atlantic. 
The depth here is a huge 13,000 feet or 4,000 metres.
Knowing that today we didn't have to disembark the ship to visit a port of call, I was able to just relax over my early morning coffee while updating some of the information I had posted last night on my Falklands blog page. I also took the opportunity to deal with a few omissions and errors too.
Maria and I ate a late breakfast together up in the Lido restaurant.
Frank Buckingham passed by while we were there and said he had read some interesting bits and pieces in the Falkland's newspaper, 'Penguin News', that I might care to read. I borrowed his copy of the journal and updated myself on the potential threat to the Falklands from the Argentinian Government. The paper was a good little read.
Our 11 o'clock 'Cruise Critic' (an internet based website where people chat and exchange information about cruising) meeting was quite well attended with over 30 present.
Beverage Manager Roger had sent out invitations for the 'gathering' the night before and had laid on some hot and cold drinks and cookies. Two of his staff were on hand to serve us.
Bill and Mary Ann were our organisers. They had us exchanging infor-mation about future ports, including our next port of call Buenos Aires, and about past experiences. A useful exchange of information took place.
As well as Roger, Cruise Director Tom and Social Hostess Ashley were also around for the meeting. Tom contributed to the meeting also answering questions from the floor.
After about half an hour Captain Albert joined us and we had him telling us about the many interesting events that he and his bridge crew experienced during the last exciting week.
His stories about the Antarctica ice pack and the icebergs that the Prinsendam had to dodge were not only highly informative but often very amusing too. He had after all been our leader to nowhere a couple of days ago!
The Captain took a long question and answer session from us and was candid with his responses.
He is a good guy to have around on these occasions and would probably be an excellent after dinner speaker.
Bar staff Richard and Arjim, standing atten-tatively at the bar behind the Captain, were also on hand for those that needed a late morning slug of alcoholic sustenance. However I noticed no takers.
Yesterday we received a confirm-ation letter from Françoise Birarda inviting us to a dinner at “South America's most exclusive address, 'La Mansion', a fanciful Belle Epoque manor”.
We are going to be tempted, it goes on to say, by the cooking of an internationally acclaimed chef, accompanied by a selection of Argentinian's best wines. The meal is being followed by the addition of fine classical music from a local choir.
Now as nice as that all sounds I am hugely disap-pointed that HAL is not providing a display of Tango dancing in this the city of the Tango.
As we are only in Buenos Areas for one night we will now be unable to see a proper Tango Show that the city is proudly famous for and which is widely available to be seen throughout.
Maria spent some time today putting away the 'cold weather' gear and organising the next laundry bag for the cleaners before settling down to more Nureyev. I surfed the net a little as it was a football day in the UK and teams scores needed checking.
When we were in Buenos Aires on our Antarctic cruise, we organized a private guide, Carlos, who took us all around B.A. and then on to a Tango show. It was fabulous. You really need to organize you own tours if you want to see more than the standard tours that are offered by the ships.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I loved the photo of the C.C. get together as we saw our friends Larry and Carol right in the middle of the photo. If you see them give them our regards from "Down Under".
Jennie