Antarctic Cruise Day 20 / 40 - sea day 8/11 -sea day - halfway done and laundry tour

Antarctic Cruise Day 20 / 40 - sea day 8/11 - we're at 50%

Trip day: 20 / 40

Port days: 6
Sea days: 13
Countries: 3
Continents: 2
Ports: 3

Today marks the halfway point.  It has been a terrific trip so far and we expect the second half to be just as good if not better.  We still have our private yacht for six more days until more passengers embark in Ushuaia.

The temperature continues to drop, today settling in the low 60s.  Strong winds and large swells made for a lot of ship movement today.  Even with that, the movement isn't violent - a benefit of this hull design. One negative of this ship's design is that sea spray is plentiful.  That means that even though we have a huge window wall in our room, the window is always covered in sea spray, making the view less than spectacular.  

I noticed this sign on the railing outside the World Cafe.  This is on the handrail along the outside walkway on deck #5. 

Seriously, do people really need to be told not to climb on the fifth-floor railing that keeps them from falling into the sea? Wow.

Baggo did not go well for the passengers once again today.

Despite our best efforts, the crew chipped away on every throw and handed us our third loss in a row.  We still got the drink at the end, so there weren't many tears.

We met with our boat team and the boat is looking excellent.  We'll do another test float tomorrow in advance of the competition in two days.

We also met with our cocktail competition team.  Our cocktail and presentation are coming along.  We will do our final practice tomorrow and compete in two days.

This afternoon, Viking offered a tour of the ship's laundry facility.  We did a similar tour on the world cruise so we thought it would be interesting to compare the facilities.  As expected, this was a much smaller operation, but no less professional.  A crew of six handles all laundry functions for the crew, passengers, and hospitality operations, 24-hours per day.

Two huge dryers

The laundry master, demonstrating the pants steamer

It straightens the legs, injects steam, then cools the slacks

Two smaller and two larger washing machines

This unit dries, presses, and folds flat items like pillowcases and sheets

Along the way, we also caught a view of the morgue.

Luckily, it wasn't occupied

We were presented with a beautiful sunray sunset tonight.

Tonight, they hosted a dancing-under-the-stars party on the Finse Terrace.  With the extensive ship movement, chilly temperature, and abundant breezes, we skipped that and spent the remainder of the evening enjoying the vocal duo in the Explorers’ Bar.  That also gave me a nice location to write this tome.

Tomorrow, we start the second half of the trip and the last three sea days before our arrival in Port Stanley.