AT SEA

THE PERFECT ROUGE WAVE:

Yesterday, was quite an eventual day. In the morning, the captain warned us it may be rough like the previous night where our ship was rocking and rolling. We were heading for a low pressure area. The captain said be prepared for 25 ft waves and hold onto the railings and walk carefully. The previous night wasn't too great with passengers ill from sea sickness but I was fine.

Throughout the day, it was difficult walking around. We would look out the windows and see huge waves coming towards the ship. Scary. We decided to go to the top deck for lunch, and were told it was closing down, too much movement, dishes were rattling around. So we went to the dining room on the fourth floor and watched the waves through the windows. They were getting bigger and bigger.

At 6 pm. an announcement came throughout the ship, that we would not be arriving in Adelaide the next morning. We were told that the ship had to move slowly through these very rough seas and that some events were being cancelled and decks closed for our use. We could feel that it was getting worse.

We were at our dining room table in the centre of the ship, and would see the horizon disappear completely. We thought that was strange. Then sometimes the ship just rolled so much that you could hear the guests at the window go oohhh ahhhh. We were getting alittle worried, and then our chairs started to tip, and the glasses on our table started to move and tip, the dishes in the waiter's stations started to crash, people started yelling at one table, the waiters were running around trying to stop trolleys from moving and tipping, and we stood up to get our balance. We all looked at eachother as all hell broke loose. I thought oh my God. The waiters ran to the couple who fell out of their chairs, a few fell out in the centre, and we thought no dessert for us, we are out of here. Doug in the meantime had gone to the reception desk to get something, and a lady in the bar got tossed out of her chair and banged her head to the railing. The doctor ran to her. The bar fellow was trying to rescue his glasses but they all came crashing down.

We decided to come to our staterooms to see the damage and ran into our stewardess who was almost crying. She said the rooms are a mess, broken wine glasses, stuff tossed everywhere, passengers scared, her work room all a mess. We came into our room and stuff was strewn but nothing was broken. Mary Anne had broken wine glasses in her room and all of us had to do some cleaning. My sweaters in the closets fell down, and other stuff but not too bad.

We went to the evening program that was thrown together because the dancers could not dance for fear of breaking their legs. After the program, we were told to go to our rooms and settle in for the night for it was going to be bad. We could hardly sleep. The ship was tossing, and rolling, and stuff was moving on the night tables, and the walls were creaking and the wind whistling. You could feel the bed go up in the air and then boom down you were in the bed. This continually happened all evening.

In the morning, we could look out and see that the sea was somewhat calmer. We went to the Bistro for our coffee and heard all the low down. On the way to the Bistro, I talked to another Stewardess who said that the flat screen TVs in the Penthouses fell down and broke, the TV sets is the crew's rooms fell down, the Lido deck dishes came crashing down. In the Bistro, the fellows said they have hardly any dishes left. They have to go to the boxes and bring more up because everything broke. The shops had their displays come down. The girls were putting stuff up. The dining room lost 90% of their glasses. The boys were going to be cleaning 1,000 new wine glasses for the dining rooms. Some waiters were hurt but not too badly. A stewardess told our friends that she was in their room cleaning up when she saw this HUGE wave coming and she was so frightened that she ran into the hallway because it was coming right to the 8th floor window. The captain came onto the intercom to say that last evening's waves were 45 ft high. No wonder we had so much movement. He was trying to calm us down and it helped. We had hit an unexpected very low pressure area and had to move the ship very very slowly through all the high waves and swells. It was something to see outside the windows. The staff had to work late to clean up all the mess. The backstage props were strewn everywhere, the keyboards in the music area fell down, some people fell out of their chairs in their rooms. Harry had his water glass come right at him all over him in the dining room. I jumped up. The waiter said you were lucky it was only water, some people had their wine glasses come ontop of them. The dining room was a mess in the work stations. Food on the floor, glasses broken, trolleys moved everywhere. They were running around and trying to salvage whatever they could.

Today, is another day. I am looking out the window and the waves are much smaller in height. We are coming into Adelaide tonight where we will get a good night's sleep.

All is better today. Another adventure to share and talk about.