San Martin, Peru to Easter Island, Chile

Our second sea day between South America and hopefully Easter Island. Yesterday’s gale force 40 knot winds have eased slightly, so at least the weather is changing for the better. We still have the expected SE’ly winds common within the tropics, but they have eased to about 20 to 25 knots, however the ship is still pitching considerably. A great day aboard Sea Princess, which included some excellent news about Easter Island from Capt Kent, an update on the progress of our new truck and an excellent dinner.

Temperature: High 23C/73F, Low 17C/63F

Wind/Weather: SE’ly winds at 20 to 25 kts. Moderate 8 to 10 foot swell. Overcast.

Sunrise/Sunset: 07:09/18:49

Clox: Z-5 (no change)

Navigation

Throughout the entire day, Sea Princess maintained a WSW’ly heading at a speed of 18.5 knots through the Pacific Ocean towards Easter Island.

Activities

This morning I completed 21 laps of 7 miles of the Promenade Deck, commencing at my usual time of about 05:30. On completion of the exercise routine, Judi was awake, so a quick shower and we headed down to breakfast. Seated in the aft corner by the galley, we had Sylvia, our Junior Waitress from dinner. We shared the table with another couple, who also joined in Sydney and a couple of ladies that joined in Southampton. It never ceases to amaze me, having been aboard for 83 days, we are still meeting people for the first time that joined the ship the same day as us. One of the ladies wanted to water-ski off the stern, so we got a great conversation going about ski boats, etc. Back in the days I worked on the Princess ships, the Officer’s Wardroom owned a ski boat, so every port it was launched and we spent the off-watch hours getting towed behind the boat. Ah! the good old days, 35 years on, I doubt if I could even get up out of the water. Breakfast was a disaster, my first and second plates of porridge were, as usual, cold. Only on the 3rd attempt did the galley manage to serve a hot bowl of porridge. However, on a positive note, the toast and tea this morning were excellent.

Today’s schedule has 2 items of interest, but they are both at the same time – Cruise Critic lunch and today’s science lecture titled, “Strike a light”. Last time we had a similar conflict I attended the lunch, missing an excellent lecture, although I did watch it later on the telly, but it isn’t as good as live. Therefore, this afternoon I’ll attend the lecture and have a later lunch. During the morning I got caught up, completing yesterday’s post and uploading it and the one from the San Martin tour. Therefore, until Bruce drops off his Machu Picchu photographs, I am all caught up.

I noted the science lecture now commences at 12:15, rather than Noon, which I assume is in response to my comments to the Cruise Director after the previous fiasco with the last Captain’s farewell noon ramblings. Due to some technical difficulties getting the laptop to sync with the projector, the lecture was further delayed, but David filled in the time discussing his personal experiences with volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis. Today’s lecture was about the science and history of something most of us probably take for granted – the common match, or more importantly the ability to start a fire. David provided an excellent history, with the first matches being invented in the early 1800’s. He also discussed the composition of matches, explaining the chemistry behind how they work.

With the lecture running late, the dining room was already closing, so we headed up to Horizon Court for a quick lunch, returning to the cabin on completion, as the daily schedule had nothing of interest. With no photographs or blog post to write, I spent the afternoon with my Lightroom 5 manual, almost completing the first chapter. On checking the email, we received an update from the Sales Manager at Hallmark Ford, as our new truck (Ford F-350 dually) was assigned a VIN this morning and is scheduled for build at the Kentucky Super-Duty factory the week of August 31st. Perfect, we should have a shiny new truck about a week after we get home. Capt Kent’s regular navigational progress update was excellent news. With the winds having abated from yesterday’s gale force, he is projecting the wind to further abate and back to the East. As a result he is quietly confident of being able to make the port call at Easter Island. He also mentioned that Easter Island maintains the time zone Z-5, so sunrise is not until about 09:00, Our ETA was 07:00, so he is amending the ETA to anchor about sunrise, which I concur is eminently sensible. With Easter Island one of the highlights for Judi, needless to say she had a huge smile.

At 18:00 we headed down to Bruce & Viv’s cabin for some pre-dinner refreshments and an amazing display of their photographs from Machu Picchu. It looked simply amazing, unbelievable how they could construct all that rock work, at such an altitude, so many years ago. Dinner this evening was International Dinner, with a dish from numerous different countries. Canada was represented with an appetiser – Crab and Papaya Cocktail. The crab I agree, but papaya??? I really don’t thinks so. Don’t even believe we have them in greenhouses. For main course, we both had surf and turf, consisting of filet mignon and prawns. Tonight the meal was exceptional, the steaks were slightly over 1” thick, cut from the tapered end, with about 1/2 dozen good sized prawns. The steaks were tender and cooked to perfection. My medium rare, was more on the rare side, being red throughout and Judi’s medium was pink throughout. When our Head Waiter stopped on his rounds, we made sure to request he compliments the galley on their efforts this evening. We complain when it isn’t right, so we are the first to compliment when it is perfect.

All 8 of us headed to the show after dinner, which was billed as, “Trevor Knight, Australia’s greatest country/folk entertainer”. Bruce and Viv have seen him before and highly recommend his performances. He certainly put on a good show, with some great music from John Denver, Beatles, Neil Diamond and Glen Campbell. I only wish he did more signing and less talking. 

As another day closes, we bid you farewell, till tomorrow and hope for fair skies and following seas.