I was a little disappointed that Sir Hillary read from his notes, instead of speaking freely. He had good pictures, and did everything himself, but it was disappointing to hear him reading. Of course, since we've had breakfast with the Hillarys a couple of times now, I've been able to hear him ad lib, so I guess I can't complain too much. Unfortunately, I didn't realize who they were the first morning, and the second we didn't really talk about much except the usual pleasantries at breakfast. (I guess I'm not really sure what I expected, but I do have a nagging feeling that I blew some interesting opportunities.)
Anyway, the talk was interesting. He used a sort of heroic tone for the lecture, talking about all of the problems they faced and the perseverance and hard work that made it all work out. I found it a tiny bit self-congradulatory, but I suppose that after all that he's done, he's earned it.
This time, the tape seems to have turned out pretty well.
After that, I went down to Raffles and had afternoon tea, listening to the Cafe Concerto Strings perform. It's so good to have well-performed music on board the ship. I've really found it helpful to be able to listen to music, since I left all of mine at home. I guess this should tell me something about the need for a portable CD player... All things in their time, I guess!
I found it more than a little strange to be having a British tea (a little more informal, I have to admit) in a restaurant that styles itself after a French Cafe, listening to music from Eastern Europe (with an Italian-sounding accordion), and watching icebergs float by outside the window. Quite an odd combination, but very enjoyable, nonetheless.
Toward the end of dinner, we saw a large iceberg appear in the forward window on our side of the dining room. We watched it pass by, but we quickly noticed that the end wasn't appearing like it should. We watched it get longer and longer, until eventually the entire window was filled with the iceberg. Shortly afterward, we finally saw the end come into sight. This iceberg was huge!
After dinner I went out on the deck, after bundling up thoroughly (including hat, scarf, gloves, and parka). It wasn't quite as windy as earlier, but it was extremely cold. (Or at least the wind was cold.) But I got some wonderful pictures, including some of the large icebergs, some panoramic pictures of the clouds and the sky, some snow squalls off in the distance, and some very unusually colored icebergs (including several with greenish colors along the sides). I also caught a couple of pictures of an Adelie penguin walking along on a smaller iceberg close to the ship (close enough to see the penguin without binoculars).
I've noticed that many of the smaller icebergs that come close to the ship lose large chunks of their sides when they hit our wake. It's very interesting to watch. The water comes up in a big wave, and the iceberg shoots up, then it falls back into the water, and picks up a lot of water. Then, it jumps up again one more time, bringing water with it, and the sides are sucked down and crumble off into the water. The water foams all along the edges of the iceberg, forming brief waterfalls or fountains.