Wednesday June 07, 2023
Our first full day at sea as we travel the 660 nautical miles from Southampton to the first port of call – Stavanger, Norway, tomorrow.
The first lecture was by Peter Varley – The Norwegian Sea – Meteorologist. The Greenland and North American tectonic plates drifted away 50 million years ago forming an almost enclosed basin of the Norwegian and Greenland seas. Considering this is in the Arctic Circle, the water is surprisingly warm due to the Gulf Stream. There is a grand circle flow of water around the earth. It’s start is in the northern Greenland / Norwegian Sea that is frigid. As it is cold frigid water it sinks and heads south filling the peaks and valley’s of the sea floor circling the deep Atlantic, Southern Oceans around Australia and eventually returning 3,000 years later. Meanwhile there is the warmer current that flows in the opposite direction at the surface that keeps much of the northern hemisphere habitable. The lecture was full of these fascinating facts and a good explanation of the way meteorology works, which enlightened us.
The second lecture was by Martin Griffiths an Astronomer who spoke of a very interesting, but often overlooked subject – Astronomy and Art – how each influenced each other. Starting with very primitive cave paintings showing the constellation Taurus, the plaediese and how it relates to the timing for crops, which was a way of passing on important survival information to future generations. Artists have drawn celestial scenes, the moon, each century with greater accuracy, even showing the curvature of the earth. Leonardo da Vinci was one of the first to start drawing more accurate pictures of the moon. All this was to pass on information of a technical nature to those people of society that perhaps did not have a deep knowledge of the heavens or science in general. Overall how humans make sense of the unknown and slowly the known parts of the cosmos through Art, which is a lot easier to comprehend than complex formulae.
After lunch in the Golden Lion Pub, the afternoon saw some in the gym, others resting or on buisness calls. The evening was the first of the Gala nights with all dressing in long dresses and dinner jackets. It is always good to see people all dressed up for the evening and the entire ship is transformed into an elegant village. Admittedly not for everyone, but definitely for those of us of a certain age that like the finer aspects of life years ago. The show was the Cunard Singers and Dancers performing the good show “Be Our Guest”, always lots of fun. This particular troupe have only been together for a week, so it was their first show and thus a little off in some of the timing, but a fun show.
Roger & Anne Travels 