(prelude: is it even LEGAL for an airline snack to be this healthy??)
Well, each of us had our personal worry about "worst case." Angie worried about complex travel connections, and I fretted over our first day at sea in the open waters. Turns out, each of us were correct!
Angie's flight from O'Hare departed 90 minutes later than schedule. She had only 60 minutes in Iceland between planes. Problem! Fortunately we'd invested in trip insurance AND she had made her air arrangements through Viking. After a major scramble, and an unexpected assist in jumping the line at UK immigration, she arrived at the ship at 5:25 and was taken directly to the Muster Drill (lifejacket education) at 5:30. Departure time? 6P. PHEW!
Meanwhile, I'd been increasingly worried that she wasn't here, and though the announcement was made that all passengers were logged into the meeting, I didn't see her. However, as the crowd thinned we met up. Neither of us was in the mood to dress for dinner, so after her luggage was delivered we wandered up to the pool deck for a light meal.
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| Waves crashing on our third-deck balcony |
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| white caps and big roller |
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| spray driven off the whitecaps |
The blessing of first day being at sea was that we had no particular time we needed to be up and around. The difficulty, as the captain had announced yesterday afternoon, was that we were sailing directly into a "full gale." If I recall correctly from some casual education years ago, a proper gale is defined in part by the wind "blowing spray off the tops of the whitecaps." Yep, that was happening; the waves crashed against our third-deck balcony. Little surprise the boat was rock'n'rolling, we were firmly admonished to HOLD ONTO SOMETHING at all times. We needed little encouragement. Happily, getting horizontal minimized the effect of the motion, and we slept. REALLY well. didn't get up until the better part of 10:30, and by then just dithered around in the room until lunch was served.
We dined in the main restaurant, by a wall of windows. Each of us opted for the pasta dishes, non-complex-carbs being good for the somewhat-unsettled tummies. An unexpected benefit was several rainbows in the spray as we continued to move through the heavy chop.
We explored the boat a little. A beautiful cake and bottle of bubbly was delivered to our room to celebrate Angie's recent birthday. Whee!
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| Happy Birthday, Angie! |
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| Viking's finest bubbly |
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| How many layers per piece of fruit? |
So we managed through the excitement of Angie's travel challenges, and of the rolling breakers on the open ocean, enjoyed our cake and wine, and went to bed.
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