Overnight the wind died down and we woke to a much calmer day - just 10kph wind-speed instead of yesterday's 70+ (and the 100kph of a few days ago). The motion of the sea is much pleasanter - it's always an advantage, not to be thrown out of bed - and undeniably soporific. A common comment amongst us guests is that we've never slept so much or so soundly - like rocked-asleep babies, in fact.
It's probably also a factor that life onboard is so stress-free. There's literally nothing to do other than various forms of relaxing, which for many people (not me, natch) is a real novelty in their busy lives. It's also why sea days are so welcome, with no excursions to do, just a few lectures to attend if you're interested, meals to eat, books to read, people to chat to.
The Captain had some excitement, though, telling us all about a huge tabular iceberg directly ahead of us that he's on first-name terms with. Bravo-15 Zulu is a piece of the world's biggest ever iceberg, B15, that calved off the Ross ice shelf in 2000, since when bits have been breaking off and causing excitement and nuisance in all sorts of places - including offshore from Timaru in 2006. B15-Z is a decent size too, about 25km long, and before it vanished into the sleety haze was lit by iceberg blink: the technical term for a glow of white light reflecting from the ice onto the low cloud above.
So since there's nothing much else to report from today, here are some statistics for this particular cruise:
Size - Silver Explorer is 6072 tons, 108m long, draught 4.4m
Previous incarnations - 8 since launch in 1989
Purchased by Silversea - 2007 (uniquely, second-hand)
Last refurbished - 2017
Design - Ice class 1/A
Venetian Society members (ie not Silversea virgins) - 32
Solo travellers - 13
Age range - 9 (unusually low - holiday time) to 84
Nationalities in total order - US, Australia, Switzerland, China, UK, Taiwan, Canada, Hungary, Mexico, Netherlands, Ireland, Japan, Austria, NZ, South Africa, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Singapore
Price for this Medallion Suite - USD80,200 (good grief!)
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