Addendum, Postscript, Wrap-Up, Stuff – Part 4: Some geeky stuff and See You Next Time

Thursday – 11 July 11, 2013 – Boulder, Colorado, USA

It's getting to be the hottest part of the day. The 61 degrees (F) air from this morning has dissipated. Now it's 95 out. So I thought I'd sit by the swamp cooler and share some nerdy details that I just alluded to in my blog posts made during the cruise.

RESOURCEFUL CREW ON SILVER CLOUD

Lifeboat repair en situ on Silver Cloud

I've mentioned that Silver Cloud is a little ship with 380 or so passengers—I've started to refrain from calling them, "guests" as the staff on the ship invariably does since I haven't been a guest since I lectured—and 322 or so crew. But it's still a floating city with all the crafts and skills obliged to be on board to repair anything. There's a full machine shop, electronics repair (although a lack of contact cleaner spray forced me to use Gray Goose vodka on my camera's battery connectors), and all sorts of nautical abilities that I don't have a clue to understand.

One such skill involves rebuilding fiberglass composite boats that have smashed against the ship during a windstorm when being hoisted on its davit. (Bet you thought I didn't know what any of that meant.) The tender repair was underway when I took the above snapshot. By two days later, the boat looked identical to the other boat. Since the big tenders are also our lifeboats, I was much relieved.

WIND STORM DOCKING

                             Doubling bow lines during docking in high winds

A bow line snapped as Silver Cloud cast off.

There was an awful windstorm occurring as we docked in far north Honnigsvag, Norway. The captain doubled up on the bow line when we docked. Despite that, one of these lines snapped as we were casting off that afternoon. You can see the early morning and afternoon activities by a posse of line handlers and the fortunately rare sight of a broken line being hauled out of the water. The sound of the line snapping caused a number of us on deck to duck and a bunch of usually taciturn Norwegians on shore to mumble, "Oh!" They must have been very alarmed to get so excited.

HIGH SEAS INTERNET ACCESS IN THE HIGH ARCTIC

One of two Internet access antenna radomes on Silver Cloud

The two Saturn 3S90 data antenna locations on Silver Cloud on each side of the center roof structure (small white globes at front of middle square roof)

I mentioned as we sailed north from Bergen and were about to enter the fjords that Internet access would be sketchy. Of course, even the ulta-ancient Saturn 3S90 dish system can't work through 1000 meters of rock wall. We indeed lost all communications for the afternoons we sailed inland as expected.

But there's another issue. As we reached the Arctic Circle, the Inmarsat geo-synchronous satellites providing the data link to the Internet were pretty much right on the horizon. You can see from my photo of Silver Cloud the radomes for the Internet links as the two smaller white globes on either side of the superstructure just in front of the big mast. Having two such antennas, one on the starboard and one on the port side at the highest point on the ship helps ensure that a clear shot to the horizon can be obtained in most directions. This becomes a problem when the satellite is very low and something on the ship blocks the radio path.

We did have good access to the Internet even when 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle when out at sea when we were sailing northeast, east, and southeast. But on the return sailing southwest, the link kept dropping out and even when working the data rate fell to the bit per second range. (Unfortunately, the billing minutes counter provided by Silversea's provider kept working like a champ.) A careful run up six flights of stairs led to the conclusions that the gym, formerly Observation Lounge, structure at the forward bow (just in front of the TV C-Band dish's radome at the forward center of the ship which never failed receiving Fox News) was blocking the path to the horizon. Mystery solved. I used to get paid a bunch of money from my clients to make such observations. I guess this is what has paid for the cruises--kind of the circle of life.

GOODBYE AND THANKS FOR FOLLOWING ALONG

Picture in lift returning from tour I meant to show in early report. I love Barbara's expression. We had a fantastic time, not just in the elevator.

Again, thanks for your kind comments. It was nice to know someone out there in the land of actual nights was following along. I'll post a new blog for the next trip that is report worthy.

Please keep in touch.

Mike