Island Odyssey: 3 Days at Sea

Our three days at sea were more relaxed, without rushing through breakfast to catch an outing, but they were certainly not boring. You could attend presentations, photography skills sessions, concerts, search for wildlife from the bridge, have a massage at the spa (I did), and more.

The Explorer has an open bridge policy, and the bridge is a wonderful place to watch the ship being operated, search for birds and marine mammals, or just eavesdrop.

Here are some typical bridge scenes.

Here "Bud" Lehnhausen, our expedition leader, wearing the red cap, and Tom Ritchie, naturalist and expedition leader emeritus, confer on the bridge.

At various times on this voyage I captured images of different parts of the ship, and I'll present them here. First, the chartroom. A quiet getaway.

The top deck holds the library and the observation lounge, which also serves as an auxiliary dining room.

I neglected to take a picture of the main dining room, but just outside it is the "bistro," an overflow area that is also very convenient to the bar. Afternoon tea is also offered here.

One of the centers of life aboard ship is the lounge, where presentations and other events are held, and people frequently gather to read, knit, or otherwise enjoy any free time. In this first view you can see the center podium, where the ship, in its earlier incarnation as a Norwegian ferry, might have hung a disco ball.

Here is the perspective from near the podium to the bar in the rear.

Sometimes a special snack (tapas) would appear at the podium.

One flaw in the layout of this lounge is that all the fixed seats (there is a mix of fixed and partially swiveling seats) face the podium, while the multiple high-definition TVs used in presentations are along the sides. It is important to get to the lounge while there are still swivel seats available!

The cabins were comfortable and slightly larger than in the predecessor ship, the Endeavour, now performing duty for Lindblad in the Galapagos. This photo shows the section of our cabin containing the beds.

The two peculiar features of the Explorer are the irregularity of the three stairwells and the sparseness of outside connectivity (you cannot walk entirely around the ship on the outside). The front stairwell is needed to reach the bridge without going outside, for example, and you have to find a small stairway from the chartroom to make the final connection to the bridge. The first few days aboard are a learning experience!

Next is a photo looking down the middle stairwell, the one we used most, connecting the deck with the lounge and our cabin to the level of dining room and gift shop and, at bottom, the mud room. Note that there is a net at the bottom to prevent dropped objects from crashing into passers-by.

The new mud room is an order of magnitude better than the one aboard Endeavour. The zodiacs can load and unload from either side of the ship without a tall gangway to climb or descend, and there is a locker for each cabin, used during those expeditions (think Arctic and Antarctica) when you wear smelly boots and heavy coats that you would rather not store in your room. I created a rough panoramic photo of the new mud room.

That's enough about the ship. Let's move on to wildlife sightings. The Explorer was visited more than once by common dolphins, who enjoy playing in the bow wave. Even your humble amateur photographer took a couple of decent images!

The large pale orange object is the underwater streamlining bulbous bow of the ship.

Yes, you must lean far over the bow to take these pictures.

We were also visited by a merlin, a small falcon, who was hundreds of miles from land. There were two possible reasons for his arrival, to take a rest from flying, and to prey on any seabirds that were following the ship. After twenty minutes of excitement (among those of us on the bridge) he departed.

We also sighted a pair of fin whales and a minke whale, but they were far enough away that photography was challenging.

Always take your binoculars with you wherever you go!

To give you an impression of the variety of presentations during these three days here is a mere list.

• The Aging Brain, Part 1 (Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg)
• The Columbian Exchange (Tom Ritchie)
• Photography help sessions
• The Executive Brain (Dr. Goldberg)
• Oceanic volcanic islands (Jim Kelly)
• Documentary film Longitude
• A short course on navigation (Jim Kelly)
• Truth, Fiction, and the death of WOW! -- the changing face of photography (Kevin Schafer)
• King of Clarinet -- Benny Goodman (Geoffrey and Penelope Haydock)
• Crittercam work (Greg Marshall)
• History of the Isles of Scilly (Steve Blamires) 

On the cultural scene, Geoffrey and Penelope Haydock treated us to a concert during this stretch at sea.

I also like this still image from another concert.

And blessed by good weather, we enjoyed the sunsets at sea.

After three days on the waves, we were approaching the western entrance to the English Channel and the Isles of Scilly.