A Day at Sea

This is our first day aboard the Viking Octantis and a busy day it has been. 

I took several trips to the Service Desk to see if anyone could get my camera working.  We left the whole camera bag in Minnesota, so went out and bought a new camera the day before we left.  No one at the store knew anything about it, but reassured me that I could get the user's manual online.  Wrong!  I checked the charge on the battery anyway.  100% it said.  So far, so good.  While I had the charger plugged in, I turned the camera on and it worked, so I went ahead, unplugged the camera and put the camera in my backpack and the charger in the suitcase.  When we got to Buenos Aires, I tried the camera.  It would not turn on.  I plugged in the charger, it said 100%, I took a picture with the charger plugged in, unplugged the charger.  The camera would not turn on.  The only person who knew about cameras was not in, so I planned to go back later.  By the time we finished dinner, he was gone.  Meanwhile, another nice fellow at Guest Services showed me how to get pictures off my phone by using Whatsapp.  So, I will try putting them in a blog.

This morning was an hour long briefing on what to do and not to do in Antarctica to protect the land and animals and leave the continent in excellent conditions for future generations.  As part of that we took all our outerwear other than that provided by Viking to be decontaminated - they vacuumed and sprayed everything so we did not introduce any non-native plants, seeds or dirt into the land.  We were also fitted for our boots.  I will try to get a picture of us in full regalia.

After all that hassle, I went down for a massage.  "Mike" was OK, but certainly not like Thomas from the previous cruises.  I will not have another massage on board.

Tonight we ate at the World Cafe.  It is much more spread-out than on the big ships, but they still have the suchi area, a separate area for shrimp (2 kinds), Octopus salad, langoustino etc.  Darrell went to "Sin City" (otherwise  known as the dessert bar) and came back, telling me that he knew what I would get.  He was right - Caramel Custard and salted caramel gelato.

Our room has a noise like a woodpecker.  They inspected it, but could not fix it, so they offered us a room 2 doors down the hall.  It was just as bad, so we will see how it goes tonight.  They just called and offered us a room one deck down, but still mid-ship where it is smoothest.  We will see in the morning.

We are seeing a lot of staff we know from previous cruises and making new friends.  On we knew is the head of the food service staff, so we talk to him at almost every meal.  The waiters seem anxious to make our acquaintance.  As usual, we are trying to learn to thank them in their own language.  So far we have learned 3 or 4 new phrases.

Now it is bedtime, but I will try to add a few pictures.   No Luck  Maybe tomorrow.