Saturday, December 4th, Sailing past Stanley, Falkland Islands

We were all set to go ashore in the Falkland Islands and chat with the local folks, eat some British-style fish and chips, share a pint of Guinness and maybe even walk over to some nearby coves and see some penguins, but we never got the chance. After breakfast we went up to the Crow's Nest to document our approach into Port Stanley. Using the long telephoto ability of Monika's camera, we did manage to get some pictures of the islands as we glided by, but we never seemed to get any closer! I became increasingly worried that we were steaming right on past rather than curving in to go to shore. It reminded me uncomfortably of the morning we had tried to enter St. John's, Newfoundland, on our trip back across the Atlantic Ocean during Wanderung 21. That time we had kind of steamed straight across the entrance rather than turning into it, and it seemed to me that history was repeating itself!

Sure enough, around 10:30 or so the Captain came on the loudspeaker and announced he had canceled our stop at Port Stanley because we would have had to tender passengers to shore and the weather was forecast to become increasingly windy. You see, those winds would have created rougher seas in the afternoon when the tenders would be trying to bring passengers back on board, possibly preventing re-embarkation. Perhaps it was a case of "once bitten, twice shy" because about 5 years back our Captain had anchored at Port Stanley and put about 800 passengers ashore, only to have them marooned there overnight when the winds kicked up and prevented the return tendering operation in the afternoon. The passengers had been "accommodated" by the good folks of Port Stanley overnight, but our Captain seemed loathe to repeat the experience!

So instead of wandering around Port Stanley, we had a day at sea. It turned out to be a rather rough one as the storm that had been forecast to hit the Falklands did in fact churn up the seas around us during the afternoon and evening. Several times during lunch and dinner we heard the crash of a bunch of crockery hitting the floor, and our cutlery and dishes started to slide a bit around the table while we were eating lunch. On small sailboats I've heard of soaking the tablecloth to prevent such sliding in rough weather, but that was not done on the Veendam.

The excitement of the day, such as it was, was losing my reading glasses. I was carrying them in a foam pouch latched onto a belt loop, which normally is fairly secure. But somehow the whole assembly fell off while we were walking on deck for an hour or so watching the sea birds, mostly petrels and albatrosses, enjoying the winds. The weather had been so rough and windy out on deck that I naturally surmised that the wind had blown it off, so we spent a fruitless couple of extra laps around the promenade deck searching for my glass case in the scuppers.

Failing to find any trace of my glass case, as a last ditch try I reported it to the Lost and Found folks at the Purser's Office, but no luck. So I had just about written off my reading glasses (which would have severely curtailed reading books and doing crossword puzzles!), when I received a call that my glasses had just been turned in at the Lost and Found. Oh frabjous joy! A crew member had found them in a stairwell, of all places, and I was just happy that I had earlier written my name and full address on them so that they could be easily traced back to me by the crew. Memo to self: take an extra pair of reading glasses!

Rather relieved to have my glasses back, we went to a special afternoon presentation on Charles Darwin that Chris Fisher give in the main theatre forward. I was seated in a chair in front of the stage listening to Chris talk about Darwin's experiences in South America while on the Beagle I suddenly found myself plus the chair starting to slide sideways across the floor--I just don't think that's ever happened to me before and it did puzzle me as to how I was supposed to stop that sliding motion once we both got started. Fortunately, the chair and I fetched up against Monika who was somewhat better braced than I was and we all kind of stopped sliding together when the ship reach its furthest list to starboard, which was good because I was really interested in what Chris was saying about Darwin.

Chris was careful to give equal credit for the Theory of Natural Selection to Alfred Wallace, who was ready to publish his essentially identical idea on natural selection at the same time as Darwin, but Darwin did, after all, follow up with the Descent of Man in which he made the scientific case for the evolution of mankind crystal clear, and I think that was a big step beyond Wallace. Fascinating stuff, and certainly revolutionary in producing the modern scientific view of the human species, although it is, to be sure, "just a theory!" like the theory of gravity, or the round Earth, for that matter.

After Chris's lecture, we attended a Question-and-Answer session with the performance cast of the Veendam and it was interesting getting the first-hand information from those young people. While most had traditional training in song and dance, one or two of them had no formal training whatsoever, and it was hard to believe that some folks have that much raw talent (envious? moi?). A black singer called Crystal, in particular, not only sang like an angel but also seemed to have perfect control of her long, lanky body and an absolutely HUGE stage presence. She kind of owned the stage when she was on it ("ate up the scenery", is the phrase I've heard), but yet she professed no professional voice or dance training. Yeah, I guess I'm just envious!

Monika helped me dress up in my formal wear for dinner, and during the meal Gregory, Doug, Nancy, Monika and I had a nice time chatting and watching the huge swells rolling by outside the dining room window (poor Nellie was feeling a bit under the weather and missed that meal). The swells from trough to crest were actually as high as the window on our stateroom on Deck 4, a rather impressive sight, and the Captain estimated them to be 25-30 feet or so. I rather enjoyed "Mister Toad's Wild Ride" during the meal, but judging by the reaction of my fellow diners, it was poor form to shout "WHEEE!" as the ship was dropping off into a wave and crockery was crashing to the floor at the nearby serving stations. To mix an old metaphor: you can dress a little piggy up, but your really shouldn't take him out because he will "Wheee! Wheee! Wheee!"on the way home.

The evening performance was a repeat performance of a husband-wife team of gaucho dancers and a husband-wife team of magicians. The gaucho dancing was impressive and somewhat reminiscent of step-dancing in Ireland or flamenco dancing in Spain, but I enjoyed the magician simply because he interacted with the audience participants well and was truly funny. We turned in for the night right after the show, but the rough seas during the night did awaken me a couple of times. We were not, however, thrown out of our beds as apparently has happened to other folks on cruises in that part of the world.