Day 6 - Viking Vela

Well, we had a night and day. Sustained winds went from 50-60 mph to over 100 mph. Are we hurricane magnets or what? The ship was rocking, rolling, and definitely listing. It started around 2:00am and is still going on at 6pm. The Captain came over the sound system a number of times starting around 5:00am to reassure us that the boat could handle the weather. IMO, he was at least an hour late.

By the time the Captain made his first announcement, we’d already secured all the glass in the room in drawers and in towels on the sofa, wherever it wouldn’t break. Then the coffee maker fell over and we picked up all the coffee supplies.

Next up was the closet doors that banged incessantly. Martha figured that out by stuffing shoes and jackets between the sliding doors and the dresser to keep the doors open.

The bathroom has cabinets and drawers, all of which were banging a lot! Somehow Martha took off the cabinet doors - seriously, how does she know how to do these things? And in the middle of the night! One bathroom drawer broke free - it came flying out, never to be put back in. Then we had lotions and potions rolling all around the bathroom. I came up with the idea to take off the shower door water guard and force the door to open inside. Who needs a big glass flying projectile at a time like this?

It seemed like as soon as we got something secure, something else would crash. Every horizontal surface had to be cleared. We will never find everything we stowed away.

The Captain came on again and asked people to stay in their rooms, and he had to ask that more than once. First, it’s like 5am, second, where are you going? The ship is all over the place and everything is closed. We can barely stand and that is with holding on to stuff! Also, if you’ve walked a ship, you’ve seen the incredible amount of glass and glasses everywhere. A lot of it has to be broken by now. The Captain said the dining tables and chairs were all on their own journey around the various restaurants and seating areas.

The crew brought boxed breakfast and a hot lunch to every cabin. And now dinner may be in our cabin too. They were working very hard to keep people safe and respond to all of the breakage.

The one good thing is the tv is streaming a lot of tv shows and we have books and magazines. So, we are entertaining ourselves.

About midafternoon, the Captain came on and said we were changing course and going to a different city than expected. This will get us inland and out of the storm. He explained that we have to make a big turn and it’ll get choppy again on our way in. Also it’ll take about 4-5 hours to get there. We will have to have a tugboat pull us in. Sigh.

Martha’s addendum: Maggie has given a very accurate account of how we managed the storm. Let me try to paint a picture of what it felt like: Imagine you are riding a four wheeler on the most treacherous trail known to man, complete with boulders and hills and valleys and twists and turns. You are hanging on for dear life because you could fall out at any moment and there are no seatbelts. Now imagine that feeling for, at least, the next 8 hours…non stop…relentless. And now try to fall asleep. Then, for the next 8 or so hours, the terrain levels out a bit but the boulders are just as big and you still have to hold on to any available handgrip just to reposition yourself.

Comedies spoof storms on ships by having people roll out of bed and lamps swaying and bottles sliding from side to side before they fall off and break. This was no comedy. I’ve been through some frightening events in the past; but never one that lasted so long.

Back to Maggie: I was scared too. The bumps from blasting through the waves weren’t too bad but the listing was freaking us out. The Captain said the waves were coming over the bow and that is at least 4 stories above the water level. I feel bad for anyone who gets seasick, because there was no way they weren’t barfing all morning.

There are no pictures because we can’t open the sliding door. (We can but we shouldn’t). And it is just waves for as far as the eye can see. At least we still have patio furniture out there.