The Gale of Earl?

Hi, Maren here. I was asked to post this on mom and dad's blog.  However, in usual fashion I had to dig a little deeper into mom and dad's situation out there. 

Let's back up to earlier this week:  Hurricane Earl was on his way up the coast.  No biggie, and we all fared well and enjoyed a day of Earl Clouds.  I got to wondering then: if Earl took his projected course (the one we humans assigned him...not his own), then there was a good chance he could affect the seas that mom and dad were traveling across on.  I didn't worry, and I didn't mention this to anyone. I figured mom and dad already knew of Earl and if THEY weren't concerned, I shouldn't be.

According to NOAA's maps this morning, Earl is a tropical storm now, hovering off the eastern coast of Newfoundland.  Wind speed...ehh.  Pretty average, but noticable. 

What are the chances that Earl has disrupted the waters of the northern Atlantic, only to hinder mom and dad's crossing?  Who knows, but I think it would be nice to pretend I have this all figured out for them. 

You know..."Mom.  It's Earl.  There's nothing you can do about him.  Give him a bit of time...he'll settle down and you can scoot right on past him,"

Just don't fall off the boat, for heaven's sake!

We spent a quiet night at port in Dublin and were awakened with an update by the Captain at 8:00AM. In effect he said that it was very wise that we didn’t proceed to Belfast last night and that we were still under strong gale warnings in the Irish Sea. He has instructed the crew to remove all the chairs and loungers from the upper decks. When we leave today at noon he will tell us how to secure ourselves and our cabins from the rough seas we will encounter the next few days.


I will probably keep you all updated by email instead of blogging since there won’t be that much to blog about. Maren, if you want to copy and post my emails in our blog that would be fine. All on the ship are a bit nervous about the upcoming voyage including me. When the weather is nice a transatlantic crossing is wonderful. When it isn’t I guess I will find out if I will ever do this again. Probably not!

About 10 minutes ago the Captain came on again and said the following: “This is only a drill, this is only a drill. Man overboard on the starboard side. Man overboard on the starboard side”. Now one would assume then that the Captain is preparing the crew for all possible situations but I think that all 3000 of us nervous passengers DID NOT need to hear that!! Thank goodness I have a full bottle of xanax and some sea sickness medicine because I am sure I will need plenty of it!

I will keep you posted of our adventure. Love you all. Maybe a prayer or two would be helpful too!

Mom/Maridee

Okay now the Captain has said that we cannot leave until 7:00PM due to the harbormaster not being able to lead us out, something about 3-4 meter swells. We are docked until then. The gale warning should abate by then and hopefully our sailing will be smoother. We will keep you posted.

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