Day 37 - 11/12/23 - Stanley , Falkland Islands & At Sea to Montevideo

 After going to bed by 9:30pm the night before, I was up by 3:30am.  I checked the weather forecast and noted high winds projected for Stanley in the afternoon.  It was getting light and we were sailing in zero visibility fog conditions.  It wasn't looking good for making the port.

We officially got out of bed just after 6am and prepared for our day.  We went up to the LIDO for breakfast and I continued to monitor our track on my Pocket Earth APP.  At 7:30am I could see that we were passing the bay entrance and continuing to head north.  At that point I knew in my heart that we were likely going to miss the port.  

Then the three chimes came over the PA system and Captain Smit announced that he had consulted with the local port authorities and his weather charts and determined that the seas would be too rough and the winds too high (particularly in the afternoon) and that he was canceling the port stop. He expressed his disappointment in having to make that decision.  He also commented that he would be plotting a route to travel behind a significant storm to make for a more pleasant cruise.  It would add about 65 miles to the previous more direct course. 

I then dashed off a brief message to our tour operator, Shaun at Adventure Falklands advising him of our port cancelation.  I assured him that if we were to return to Stanley I would contact him to do the excursion to Volunteer Point.

With that letdown, the mood of the ship was pretty somber.  Jeremy finally came on the PA system and announced that the daily schedule would be altered for our now new sea day. He would now do a Montevideo port talk at 10am (his best so far) and the 2:30 movie would be moved to the World Stage from the Wajang theater.

Just before Jeremy's port talk, Florin came on the PA system (which is very unusual).  He announced that with our Port cancellation that there would be an open bar for any drink.alcoholic or not, would be free between 1 and 2pm.  One could order up to two drinks at any bar, so Angela and I proceeded to visit every bar for two cans of Coke Zero each for our soda supply.  That was pretty cool.

We were supposed to have dinner with our new friends, Bill & Solange, from Montreal.  Since we now had a sea day, we learned that the Pinnacle Grill would serve a lunch meal, so we booked it as a birthday celebration for Bill.  They served the Cioppino soup that was no longer on the Caneletto menu and it was very good.  The whole meal was so good that we skipped dinner.

The afternoon movie in the World Stage was difficult to hear the voices and their British accents were difficult to understand.  That along with my lunch meal led to me falling asleep during much of the movie.  At the end of the movie, Angela announced that it was really good, so I purposed to stay up and see it at the 9pm showing.

Before attending the 6pm interdenominational service, I tried to nap a bit, but wasn't successful.  I also investigated another option to visit Stanley, and it looks promising.  I'll disclose that option later, and it's pretty cool if it comes to pass.  

The evening entertainment was the Brazilian singer, Danilo Gomes.  He was really good and he had the audience sing Happy Birthday to Bill.   Afterwards, we did watch the movie, The Bank of Dave, and it was really good and much easier to hear in the Wajang Theater. There was no napping for me this time.

The seas definitely have gotten rougher as we make our way to Montevideo.  But even our forward deck one cabin is quite comfortable.  There will be two sea days ahead of us.