This morning’s weather is too icky (that’s a technical term) to go out, so here’s a bunch of scattered tidbits from my journey so far.

Pop quiz – what are firn, neve and tarn? Hint, they are associated with glaciers

With our current plan, we will not be crossing the Antarctic Circle, which is currently about south latitude 66.3°, but we may get within one degree or so. When I asked the Staff Captain about crossing it, her eyes got real big and she shook her head. Seems the Silver Wind’s hull is not quite rated for that thickness of ice.

I’ve greatly enjoyed Silversea cruising – hell, I’ll have more than 220 day of cruising with them since 2019. However, there have been a couple of things you find that make you go “hmmmm”:

• The is a ship-wide public announcement system that can sound within your suite. For example, during the before-we-leave-port required safety drill. However, most announcements only occur in the hallways, such as “Zodiac Group 1, Please come down to the dock to load and explore!”. I understand they don’t want to interrupt guest who are resting, but I’ve always found it amusing (and kind of pathetic) that people who are spending multiple hundreds of dollars per day are forced to jump up and open their cabin doors to hear announcements. Couldn’t they add a switch in each cabin to allow guests to choose to hear non-emergency announcements within?
• During public announcements there is a little “tone” that plays to get your attention. On the Silver Wind, that tone is also used by the elevators when they arrive at your selected deck. So, every time I use the elevator I stop before exiting expected to hear the bridge say something.

One of my fun memories is while in the before-cruise hotel restaurant one of the US English-speaking guests trying to explain to the Chilean Spanish-speaking server how to make an “Arnold Palmer“.