A Hurricane and a Harbinger of Nostalgia

Voyage 8 - January 25 – Febrary 12

I have never in my life felt so vulnerable as I did on the night of February the fourth. We were sailing southwest, towards the South Orkney Islands from South Georgia, that is, until a meteorological report came in complete with a hurricane warning. The seas in the direction we were heading had ten-meter swells. Ten meters. Something like thirty-six feet. Needless to say, we changed our course for the opposite direction. The hurricane was going to do one of two things: It was going to head south and completely miss us or go north, towards us, and bring its ten-meter swells and one hundred and twenty kilometer winds with it. Nobody knew what was going to happen. I could hear it in the concern in our expedition leader’s voice and I saw it in the way we went to all lengths to secure everything on the ship.

I lay in bed that night thinking about a lot of things. I thought about how hurricanes destroy cities. I thought about our little tiny open top lifeboats. I was aware of every movement of the ship, wondering if every wave we hit was a harbinger of worse things to come. When I would drift off to sleep my dreams would immediately magnify the rolling and I would awaken again in a panic. My ship is a good ship, but obviously not invincible. I thought about the six-meter swells from Christmas Eve, and tried to imagine what sailing through peaks and valleys of ten meters would feel like. I thought about my bar and suddenly was convinced I’d left glasses lying around, so I got up, ostensibly to double check everything, but really I think I needed to walk around and see passengers who weren’t worried like I was. There was indeed a couple still up, playing cards. Seeing their nonchalance and the quizzical look on their faces to see me puttering around my bar at two in the morning helped to calm me. I went back to my cabin and fell asleep and when I woke up I learned that the storm had gone south, away from us.

When our passengers hear about the storm we weathered on Christmas Eve a common question I get asked is whether or not I was scared. The question has always surprised me. Why would I worry? This boat has been sailing through the Drake Passage for years. There is a tourism industry built around sailing people through these stormy waters. Sure, we rolled 38 degrees, but the ship can handle at least 45 degrees of roll before she’s in danger of not being able to right herself. It was an eventful evening, chaotic, and a little bit exciting, but scary? Nah. It took the night of the hurricane warning to remind me of how were not invincible out here. I mean, there was a time when a solitary iceberg sank a certain unsinkable ship. Shit happens.

I’m certainly not saying that I would ever be deterred by these realizations to come back out here – no way. I’ve discovered a new species of happiness on the Lyubov Orlova that I suspect has been well known by seafaring men since the dawn of marine travel – kind of like tasting curry for the first time in rural Minnesota. What I am saying is that I’ve come to respect the sea. It has the power to swallow us whole.

But this is just me getting introspective in the face of a hurricane just like I’m getting introspective about the inevitability of certain things coming to an end such as this season or, more abstractly, eras. The end of the season is one thing. A time will soon come where a day such as I’ve had today, where I looked out my porthole to see two humpback whales swim by in the morning and jumped off the gangway into the sea in the afternoon (it was a particularly good day and my hair still smells like saltwater) will no longer be possible. Fun. So, so, much fun. As I head into my last month down here I can already feel what Gabriel Garcia Marquez calls the insidious trap of nostalgia kicking in. But the nostalgia I will feel for this ship is going to be particularly potent because I’ve just been told of the end of an aforementioned era. Yes, the Lyubov Orlova is being retired from the Quark Fleet. It had to happen. This sluggish beast with her rust and her chinks is being put to pasture. I can say for certain that when I disembark this ship in one month, it will be for the last time.

I’ve made some pretty fantastic memories on this ship. There was the night in the Arctic where us kids drunkenly jumped into the pool with our clothes on. The first and last time I ate raw whale. There was New Years Eve, midnight sun and peaceful icebergs dotting a calm pinkish blue sea. And the night where the galley boys, gift shop girl, and myself decided to shoot jager at nine pm and we ended up dancing to Rihanna behind my bar with a fifty year old Jewish woman. The Lyubov Orlova’s birthday, letting one of the Russian waitresses behind my bar to shoot vodka and watching helplessly as she barfed on my beer fridge. The hot July afternoon we spent anchored off of Churchhill getting suntans and watching belugas swim around the boat. Jetlagged and wandering her empty halls in Tenerife. Earning my sea legs. And, of course, the Christmas Eve storm of aught nine.

I have one month to go before I move out, move on, and spend some time happily aimless and unemployed. I’m looking forward to spring, vacation, and whatever summer has in store for me, but you know what? For once I feel as though somehow the grass is sufficiently green right here in these icy landscapes.