Still in Hobart 1/2/2013

What a surprise to awake this morning and find that we were still docked in Hobart. The captain made an announcement that the Tasman Sea remained too rough for us to cross and that we would be in port until 4 pm. Unfortunately it was a long walk from the dock to the city center, no shuttles had been arranged and cabs were nowhere to be found near the ship. Some people did make the walk, but there was plenty to be seen from on-board. We had sunny skies and calm water in our “safe harbor”. There were boats of all shapes, sizes and sailboats with sails of all colors. We just added this to the number of days we would be on-board and enjoyed all that was happening around us.

At 3:30 pm as anticipated, the captain announced that at 4pm we were going to leave port, sail to the end of the channel and wait for a window of opportunity to enter the Tasman. At this point he thought we should not experience extreme forward and back motion, but we will “rock and roll” into the night. Weather conditions will improve throughout the night and into tomorrow.  He confirmed that we would miss sailing through Doubtful Sound but explained that even if we had left as scheduled, it would have made no difference as the waters of the Sound have also been quite unpleasant and mudslides have occurred.

As we entered the Tasman Sea the ship did indeed begin to “rock and roll”. When walking down the hall we would start on one side and by the time we took the step, we were on the other side. It was not terrible but it was enough to know that that the waters were no longer calm.

This did not stop us from going upstairs to have dinner. The Maitre’ D told us that the last time the ship went through this sea, it was bounced around with water hitting the windows of the restaurant on the fourth floor, deck chairs flew off the pool deck and the ship at times, tilted from side to side. He said that he is not someone who normally prays, but in this instance he was saying every prayer he could remember. 

When we returned to our room we could see the whitecaps on the water, hear the wind fiercely blowing and feel the ship’s movement. Drawing on lessons learned when we crossed the Drake Passage, we put all electronic equipment in drawers, made sure that all items were securely on the shelves and put the bud vase that sits on our table, into the trash can so that it would not fall over.

Mother Nature is determining our course and we have only to wait and see what comes next. We crawled into bed and decided that sleeping through all of this was our best plan.