Little did we know yesterday when we were leaving the Falklands that we were going to run in a terrible storm! The Captain's Log for Dec 13th read as follows:
“Overcast skies, precipitous seas 3° / C 37° F. Ship rolling and pitching heavily in hurricane force storm. Very heavy swell. Observed wave and swell height from trough to crest, 30m 98 ft. Experienced temperature on deck less than minus 7° C / 19° F due to wind speeds exceeding 70 knots"
It was truly the scariest day we have had on board – all of the glasses flew out of the bar in our cabin and were smashed, the nightstand kept tipping over (we finally left it), everything flew out of the fridge (Falkland Island beer sprayed all over the room), and our mirrored closet door fell off the rail and smashed on the floor. We tried to save that, but couldn’t and in doing so, I crushed my finger in the bathroom door. Dinner was cancelled, the captain asked up to please stay in our rooms and they brought around turkey sandwiches. We went to bed singing ‘There’s Got To Be A Morning After’ from the Poseidon Adventure.
During the night we lost the anchor – it splayed out and the Captain said we couldn’t go anywhere until he could bring it back up, which wasn’t easy, it apparently took a while. But, there was indeed a morning after, and by noon the Captain had outrun the storm and was in calm waters heading towards Ushuaia, Argentina.
In the Captain’s noon address on the 14th, he mentioned that times the winds were 115 mph which is 2 x hurricane force. And needless to say, since we were late & we wouldn’t have seen anything anyhow, we skipped the Cape Horn Cruising.