Crusin' to the End of the World
Dec. 29th, 2025 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tcpipLeaving the fine city of Buenos Aires, we embarked upon the Sapphire Princess to head to Antarctica. It's an impressive vessel, over 300m in length, over 60m in height, weighing 115K tonnes, and carrying 3.5K crew and passengers. I confess that in the past I have looked down on cruise ships, considering them to be places of vacuous culture whose greatest good is the opportunity to hide away and write a novel. Neither of those positions is incorrect; the place is full of bars and gaudy nightclubs, with multiple light jazz bands playing in various nooks, and with incessant piping of the worst of Christmas songs. But my assessment was also quite incomplete. Being the type of cruise this is, the rather impressive theatrical hall is also home to high-quality, accessible, and entertaining lectures, given multiple times a day by geologists, naturalists, and historians, concerning the Antarctic. The same location also hosts evening performances by singers, musicians, and comedy shows, among others. The most impressive was an Argentine tango dance that cleverly melded the history and representation of the dance into its performance.
Due to a curious turn of events, I ended up presenting at the theatre itself on Christmas Day; the ship required someone to conduct an interdenominational service, and, with a bit of a background in such things, I offered my time. A pre-designed service had already been written; however, I was given the opportunity to add a brief introduction, introduce the readings (carried out by other volunteers), and provide a brief address. I took the opportunity to emphasise the importance of remembering how fortunate everyone present was to be on such a voyage, with the time, money, and health, and how everyone must not forget those who did not have this opportunity. I concluded with a reading from James 2: 14-18, which speaks of the need to feed and clothe all as a priority; "Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds". The message seemed to strike a chord; I am guessing that a number of the congregation have more than a sense of unease and self-awareness to be so privileged on such a journey. I will take this opportunity to, once again, recommend my preferred charity (life-years saved per dollar spent), Effective Altruism.
After Christmas, the ship ventured into Patagonian Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost permanently inhabited region on Earth, a wild place of channels, mountains, a plentiful supply of wind and rain, and an abundance of natural beauty. Our first port was Chilean Punta Arenas in the Straits of Magellan, where we were able to tender for a day ashore. It was a town with some charm, including the Sara Braun cemetery that held the remains of not only author Charles Amherst Milward but also the University of Melbourne's Walter Baldwin Spencer. There was a moment of greater excitement when there was a sudden change of weather on the return tender in the late afternoon, with winds reaching over 100kmh, which was interesting if you were on the top deck of a little lifeboat, as we were. The following day, travelling through the Beagle Channel, we reached Argentinia's Ushuaia, the southernmost city of the world, "fin del mundo", a fairly rough-and-ready place, but also surrounded by astounding glaciers and subpolar forests. The next step is the Drake Passage, notoriously known for the roughest seas in the world, and then Antarctica itself.
Due to a curious turn of events, I ended up presenting at the theatre itself on Christmas Day; the ship required someone to conduct an interdenominational service, and, with a bit of a background in such things, I offered my time. A pre-designed service had already been written; however, I was given the opportunity to add a brief introduction, introduce the readings (carried out by other volunteers), and provide a brief address. I took the opportunity to emphasise the importance of remembering how fortunate everyone present was to be on such a voyage, with the time, money, and health, and how everyone must not forget those who did not have this opportunity. I concluded with a reading from James 2: 14-18, which speaks of the need to feed and clothe all as a priority; "Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds". The message seemed to strike a chord; I am guessing that a number of the congregation have more than a sense of unease and self-awareness to be so privileged on such a journey. I will take this opportunity to, once again, recommend my preferred charity (life-years saved per dollar spent), Effective Altruism.
After Christmas, the ship ventured into Patagonian Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost permanently inhabited region on Earth, a wild place of channels, mountains, a plentiful supply of wind and rain, and an abundance of natural beauty. Our first port was Chilean Punta Arenas in the Straits of Magellan, where we were able to tender for a day ashore. It was a town with some charm, including the Sara Braun cemetery that held the remains of not only author Charles Amherst Milward but also the University of Melbourne's Walter Baldwin Spencer. There was a moment of greater excitement when there was a sudden change of weather on the return tender in the late afternoon, with winds reaching over 100kmh, which was interesting if you were on the top deck of a little lifeboat, as we were. The following day, travelling through the Beagle Channel, we reached Argentinia's Ushuaia, the southernmost city of the world, "fin del mundo", a fairly rough-and-ready place, but also surrounded by astounding glaciers and subpolar forests. The next step is the Drake Passage, notoriously known for the roughest seas in the world, and then Antarctica itself.
