Just One More Sea Day Before We Get to Dakar, Senegal
Tomorrow will be our 7th consecutive sea day. After Dakar, two more sea days, but then ports come in quick succession as we sprint to the finish line, Greenwich, England.
Here’s where we are as I write this before going to bed Wednesday evening:
In this screenshot from cruisemapper.com, you can see our deflection to “Null Island,” and you can see that the Viking Neptune deflected to Null Island earlier today and is now heading this way. That other ship is Cunard’s Queen Victoria, which did not give its passengers the opportunity Viking did to discover that the famous sea buoy was missing! BTW, Rita and I have fond memories of a transatlantic crossing on the Queen Victoria several years ago.
Because we arrive in Dakar (the point at the top left of the above screenshot) on Friday, there was a port talk and description of the many shore excursions at that port of call. The excursion we booked is a 7-hour safari at a private reserve where the chances of seeing actual wildlife will be much higher than the wasted excursion in South Africa. We’re pretty excited about it! Dakar, in case you didn’t know, was the major port of departure for African slaves, making it a very significant port. Other shore excursions include visiting the “door of no return” and other sites associated with the slave trade. Senegal is a former French colony, so we’ll experience more of a French environment, including architecture and language, than we did at Reunion, that island near Madagascar which is still a “department” of France.
There were three interesting lecures today.
Gavin W. Roser spoke about shipbuilding, past and present. He is from Scotland (with a great accent and sense of humor), and Scotland was and is a major shipbuilding center near Glasgow. We learned a lot about the history of shipbuilding and which are the major shipbuilding countries now. George has become one of our favorite lecturers, and this was his last lecture. He’s leaving us in Tenerife.
Dr. Kathy Mansfield spoke about South African literature, both during and after apartheid, reading excerpts from several books she highlighted. Some of those excerpts were quite moving. Two of the books she cited made the biggest impression on Rita and me.
George Srankos spoke about the discovery and mapping of continental drift, which was quite interesting. He highlighted the work of Marie Tharp, who created the first maps of the great mountain ridges under the oceans. Did you know that the Apalachian chain of mountains along the east coast of the United States continues under the ocean and reappears in Norway? And that the longest and tallest mountain chain in the world is under the Atlantic Ocean, extending from the Arctic Circle to the Antarctic Circle?
Rita and I continue to spend our free time between lectures and meals streaming Downton Abbey. Today we got mostly through Season 4…
Bye for now.