Voyage to the Arctic; Day 3, Water, water...

This day was one purely of voyage across the open sea. A group of wedding guests becalmed at sea. Now what does that remind me of?

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone: 

He cannot choose but hear; 

And thus spake on that ancient man, 

The bright-eyed Mariner.

The bride hath paced into the hall, 

Red as a rose is she; 

Nodding their heads before her goes 

The merry minstrelsy.

And now there came both mist and snow, 

And it grew wondrous cold: 

And ice, mast-high, came floating by, 

As green as emerald.

The ice was here, the ice was there, 

The ice was all around: 

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, 

Like noises in a swound!

Water, water, every where, 

And all the boards did shrink; 

Water, water, every where, 

Nor any drop to drink.

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell 

To thee, thou Wedding-Guest! 

He prayeth well, who loveth well 

Both man and bird and beast.

I think they caught the 'flu...

We were traveling up the Inside Passage along the coastline of British Columbia and Alaska. Traveling at sea was disturbing to everyone's inside passage, but more so to Annick than most. She had however come prepared with multiple medications and even a pretty but useless acupuncture-point wristband. 

Once we came out of the Inside Passage and onto open sea, these tablets proved their worth. 

Or was it the wrist band?

Our luck was with us. The normal weather pattern around here could be incorrectly summed up as damp. Correctly it could be summed up as bloody soaking. Today, and the next couple of days, were exceptional in that blue sky could occasionally be glimpsed. 

This was no beach holiday.

We met with the Hyde family and friends over afternoon tea (a quaint custom in Canada presumably originating from the primeval British Empire)...

...then later with a quiz organised by Adam, which, without doubt, in any rational civilisation, our team should have won. However the judging committee (Adam) clearly confused our creativity with cheating, and failed to give us our just deserts. 

Our subsequent appeal fell on deaf ears.

We then retired to the casino (oh the joys of a life on the open waves). I strayed by Adam's poker table, awed at his innate ability to skilfully move the cards hither and thither.

And lose. 

Sonia's mum, on the other hand, sat in front of one of those electronic non-armed bandit machines and won thousands. 

C'est la vie.

Alone, alone, all, all alone, 

Alone on a wide wide sea ! 

And never a saint took pity on 

My soul in agony.

Next episode here...