Another day at sea as we sail towards Bermuda. A few facts about our ship.
The Silver Whisper was built in Genoa, Italy. Her keel was laid March 1999, and the ship was completed in 2001. She is 610 feet long, 81 feet wide. Cruising speed is 21 knots. She holds 275,000 gallons of fuel oil, 272,500 gallons of potable water and the swimming pool holds 15,750 gallons of water. The anchors weigh 12,160 pounds.
There are 4 motorized lifeboats that hold a total of 590 persons. The maximum guest capacity is 382, there are about 272 on board for this leg of our journey. Normal crew manning is 295.
Today we are sailing through waters that are about 16,000 feet deep. The swells are 10 to 12 feet, coming straight at us, so the roll of the ship is minimal, but the pitching does get one’s attention. Temperatures have cooled significantly from the 90 degree weather in St. Barts, to a mild 72. The forecast for Bermuda is in the 70’s. Darn, I was just getting used to the warmer weather.
On sea days, the cruise director plans activities to keep everyone entertained – bridge, enrichment speakers, cooking demonstrations, etc. There is also a fitness center, spa, library, and a couple of observation lounges that are nice, quiet places to hang out, read a book and watch the world go by. About a third of the folks spend the day around the pool. With the pitching, the sloshing in the pool is something to behold. Not sure I am brave enough to go in with the water moving like that. Of course, there is always someplace to get something to eat or drink 24/7.
The age of the passengers ranges from 1 year old to mid 80’s. The one year old is the only little one on board. There are a few late teens/early twenties traveling with parents or grandparents. Looking at the rest of the group, I would estimate that 1/3 are older than us, about 1/3 are around our same age and about 1/3 are younger.
There is wireless internet access throughout the ship, but if you want to do something without tearing your hair out because the signal dropped or has slowed to a crawl, it is best to use the computers in the computer center. Even at that, the speed isn’t what you get at home.
Uploading photos has turned out to be a bit of a technological challenge. The photo files straight from Paul’s are too big to upload. My phone won’t talk to the website, so that avenue won’t work. For today’s photo upload, we copied files from Paul’s camera to another passenger’s computer, resized and copied them back to a thumb drive. At 25 cents a minute for internet time, I am not keen on researching the problem. Hopefully there will be a coffee shop or brewpub with free wifi when we hit New York, so we can research and download solutions. Until then, photos will be few and far between.
