Antarctic Cruise Ship Freed by High Tides

by Kraig Becker on

The Antarctic cruise ship M/V Ocean Nova, the ship that ran aground yesterday, has been freed from the rocks by the high tide, and is now steaming back to Ushuaia, Argentina for inspection. High winds and pushed the vessel, which was carrying 106 passengers and crew, onto the rocks in Marguerite Bay, off the Antarctic Peninsula.

Before departing the area, divers inspected the Ocean Nova and found no evidence of damage to the hull. According to updates from Quark Expeditions, the company that operates the cruise ship, video of the hull was examined by maritime experts who declared it safe to get underway. If the vessel passes inspection, as expected, it will begin its next voyage on the 22nd of February.

Meanwhile, all of the passengers that were aboard the ship were transferred to another vessel, the M/V Adventure Clipper, yesterday and were also en route back to Ushuaia. No one was injured in the incident, and everyone is said to be in good spirits despite the interruption to their vacation.

Fortunately there doesn’t seem to have been any environmental damage done to the region either. Since the hull was not breached, there was no leaking of fuel or other contaminants, and the fragile Antarctic environment appears to have been left unscathed by this most recent accident. Patrick Shaw, the President of Quark Expeditions is quoted as saying, “We are grateful that no environmental damage occurred and that all travelers who were aboard Ocean Nova are safe.”

Antarctic Cruise Ship Runs Aground

by Kraig Becker on

The Antarctic cruise ship the M/V Ocean Nova has run aground in Marguerite Bay, near the Antarctic Peninsula, with 106 passengers and crew aboard. According to this story, from The Guardian, there is no immediate threat to anyone on board the vessel.

Quark Expeditions, the tour operator running the Ocean Nova, is posting updates for the press on their website, and reports that ship is not leaking fuel, and that the captain was waiting for high tide to return in the hopes that it would help in freeing the ship from the rocks. Since that dispatch however, two high tides have come and gone, and there is no word that the ship has been freed. Meanwhile, another ship, the M/V Clipper Adventurer is en route to pick-up the passengers and return them to Ushuaia, Argentina.

Jon Bowermaster, a frequent contributor to Gadling, has updated his blog this morning with information on the incident, including his own thoughts. He was in the region in December, and feels that it will take unusually high tides to dislodge the ship and get it back on its way.

This is the second incident of a ship running aground in Antarctica in the past few months. Back in December the M/V Ushuaia ran aground in Wilhelmina Bay, and last year the Explorer sank after hitting an iceberg. These incidences help to underscore the dangers of traveling in the Antarctic.

UPDATE: The M/V Ocean Nova has been freed by high tides.

More ice cold news we’ve covered in the past – Brrrrr!


Galley Gossip: A question about packing (it’s all about the shoes!)

by Heather Poole on

Dear Heather,

Love your blog and your web site! I laugh all the time. I usually only fly once a year for a cruise, but when I do I always see people doing what you write about and I laugh. I also try to remember to do and not do what you write about. I’ve never had a bad experience with flight staff or any flight for that matter. I’m about to go on vacation and I do have a question about luggage. With all the restrictions on checked luggage, I’m trying to make the most of my carry on bags. I’ve called the airline and they refer my questions to TSA and TSA refers me to the web site or the airline (talk about run around), but some answers are not on TSA or the airline’s web site. For instance – can hair dryers, flat irons and travel irons go in your carry on? My usual carry on fits nicely in the overhead compartment, but how big of a bag can I fit under the seat? (I’ll be on a Continental 757-200 and 737-900 ) Trying to keep the weight of my checked bag down, I would like to use a bigger under the seat bag for shoes and such. The 3-1-1 rule is that per person or per carry on? I try to book a hotel near shopping so I don’t have to transport toiletries, etc. but I also hate packing that stuff in my checked bag for fear they would leak (I wrap them well and seal them in zip locks and cosmetic bags but you just never know). Any information you can give me would be helpful. Thanks and keep up the great blogging. I love it.
Debbie

Dear Debbie,

First of all, I’m glad to hear you like my blog. I’m even happier to hear you’ve never had a problem with a flight staff or on any flight for that matter. You’re one of the few.

Hair dryers, flat irons and travel irons can go inside your carry on luggage. Though I must ask why you are hauling a travel iron along with you on a trip? Do you really want to lug that thing around and then spend your precious time ironing on vacation when you could be relaxing on vacation – in wrinkle free clothes? Isn’t that what vacation is for? Relaxing. Not ironing. Personally, I’d rather not iron, and that’s why I wear the navy blue polyester dress when I’m working. However, whenever I do bring along something that must be ironed, I just hang it up in the shower and let the steam take care of the wrinkles. Now if you must take the iron with you, I guess I should tell you about a pilot I know who sprays his uniform shirts with starch before packing them inside his suitcase. He said it works.

I’m sorry to hear you’re getting the run around from the airline and TSA, but my guess is TSA is telling you to go to the airline website because every airline is different and has their own set of rules about how much luggage you can bring on-board and what it will cost to check each piece of luggage. I bet the airline is sending you to the TSA website because their rules are different from the airlines rules in regards to what you can and can not take through airport security. Me, I’d play it safe and leave the liquids at home, like you said, check one bag (if it’s too large to bring onboard with you) and take a smaller bag on the airplane.

Because you sound concerned about your bag fitting under your seat, it sounds like your bag may be a wee bit big. Just so you know, my crew tote-bag doesn’t always fit under the seat in front of me. It all depends on the airplane and how much I’ve managed to stuff inside my tote. While most of the time my bag does fit under the seat without a problem, I have had an issue on the 737, but all I had to do was take out a few books, the big bottle of water I had bought in the airport terminal after I passed through security (don’t forget to purchase yours!), turn my bag on its side and give it a good shove. Whatever you do, do not over pack and make sure that the bag going under the seat in front of you is squishable.

Packing for a long trip isn’t easy, but it doesn’t have to be hard, either. The tricky part, if you’re a woman, is figuring out which shoes you’re going to take with you, because when you’re a woman it’s all about the shoes. Am I wrong? Shoes take up too much space in the bag. That’s why I’m going to tell you to leave all those shoes you’ve packed in your smaller bag at home. I mean do you really need all of them?

Now I’m not the most fashionable person on vacation, but I do manage to have a good time and look okay doing so. The key is picking out only two pairs of shoes (a nice pair and a walking pair) to take with you and then coordinating all your outfits around them. If you’re smart you’ll be able to wear both pairs of shoes with most of your outfits. Whenever I’m going on a long trip, I pack two pairs of nice pants and two pairs of jeans (or cargo pants). When it comes to my shirts I always stick with basic colors – black, white and maybe even brown. That way I’m able to mix and match all my pieces which creates even more outfits. I use colorful accessories to dress it up or down.

See that photo over there on the right? Those are my shoes. That’s what I wore in Italy – a beat up pair of slip on canvas shoes and a pair of black boots. I made sure to wear the boots whenever traveling because my walking shoes took up less space in my bag. (Shove a few pairs of socks inside the shoes to save even more room.) Of course I packed everything for my ten day trip to Italy inside my crew luggage – a rollaboard and a tote-bag -that’s it. No need to check bags. Don’t forget, less bags equals less stress. You want to have fun, right?

The only reason I was able to make it through those ten days in Italy with only one suitcase and a tote-bag was because I rolled my clothes tightly, which resulted in me being able to pack even more clothing, I found a laundromat in Venice, which allowed me to get to know the locals and feel like a true Venetian, and I only took two pairs of shoes, which made it possible for me to get it all in one rolling bag, which is why I was able to swing my tote over my shoulder and carry that one very heavy bag up the Spanish Steps in Rome as if I were super woman in black boots.

A word of advice; If you can’t carry it (or lift it) by yourself, don’t pack it, don’t take it, otherwise you may not enjoy your trip. I had to learn that the hard way.

Hope that helps, Debbie. Enjoy your cruise! And make sure to take me with you next time.

Heather Poole

Have a question? Email me at Skydoll123@yahoo.com

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Experience the Sea without Going to the Sea

by Josh Lew on

The Great Lakes are among the most underrated tourist destinations in the US. Take Lake Superior, for example. Today I walked along the Lake in Duluth, Minnesota and watched gigantic ships come into the harbor. In certain ways, it felt more like the Pacific Northwest than the Midwest.

Of course, there are some aspects of this area that remind you of where you are:
1. Most of the conversations you overhear are about hockey, even though it’s not hockey season for another few months.
2. People here think that the best way to prepare freshly caught fish is to dip it in batter and deep fry it.
3. The guest services people at the hotels often refuse tips, responding to your gesture as if you have just offered them a bribe to help you remove a body from your room.

Other aspects of Duluth and Lake Superior are more sea-like and cosmopolitan. The lakefront area of downtown is filled with cool bars and live music venues. Students from UMD (University of Minnesota Duluth) give this strip a youthful vibe. And then there are the cruises, sea gulls, the port, the brick buildings, and all the other things that you might find in a mid-sized port town on either of the coasts. I’ll have more from this freshwater sea later in the week.

Crossing the Atlantic in the Queen Mary 2

by Tynan on

When I travel I try to cover as many superlatives as possible. The world’s tallest building (Taipei 101 for now), the longest tunnel (connecting mainland Japan with Hokkaido), the slowest train in the world.

So when I was trying to figure out how to get from Europe back to the United States, there was only one choice. The grandest choice. A seven day journey aboard the famed Queen Mary 2.

The Queen Mary 2, for those who don’t know, is Cunard’s flagship ocean liner. She was specially built for trans-Atlantic cruises, an effort which required a laundry list of technological breakthroughs. Even five years after her maiden voyage, she’s still the longest passenger ship in the world. She’s also the widest, which means she can’t make it through the Panama Canal.

Boarding the ship was the easiest cruise boarding experience I’ve had. Things were off to a good start, although a warning bell went off in my head when a mandatory picture was taken before getting on board.

Was this going to be a regular cruise, just trumped up a bit to seem more fancy?It did share more than I expected with a typical cruise, but its distinctions set it far apart from any cruise I’d been on before. If I were to draw a line down the list, I’d say that it retains the good parts and mostly avoids the annoyances.

There are shops, but they’re not peddling gold by the foot in the hallways. The servers don’t sing and dance, not that I particularly mind that on other ships apart from when they’re forced to sing the American National Anthem. The rooms have the typical amenities but are bigger and better appointed. The gym was surprisingly well equipped and much bigger than usual. The library had an amazing selection and a system for checking books out.

The few shows I saw were excellent. They had a famous British pianist play, and I spent an hour listening to the producer of the upcoming Broadway show, Tale of Two Cities, talk about the theater business. I kept intending to go to the shows in the on-board planetarium, but never actually made it there. Despite the slow pace of life on the ship, the days do seem to fly by.

What makes the cruise special, to me at least, is the camaraderie between the passengers. Even if it is made bi-weekly, the trip seems epic. After all, you’re crossing the Atlantic by sea, the way it was first crossed when settlers came to America. Everyone is thrilled to be on board and realizes that with seven days without stopping, making friends is going to be one of the best activities there is.

When we arrived in New York we said goodbye to well over a dozen friends, most of whom we got to know over dinner in the two-story dining room, or across the felt during the nightly poker games.

I could complain about a few things on the trip. In contrast with the stellar maid service, the waiter service wasn’t as good as service I had on a cheap Carnival cruise through the Caribbean. All of the Scrabble sets had the wrong amount of tiles, which probably only offends obsessed Scrabble players like myself. But in the end, these few glitches were afterthoughts of days full of pure enjoyment.

The next time I cross the Atlantic, taking the Queen Mary 2 will be the first method I look at. You can book directly at Cunard, or try Cruise Compete, which is where we got an unbelievably good deal.