August 4 - At Sea

 As I mentioned, we had to pass on going to Dublin today due to rough sea conditions.  Apparently, a rather large low pressure system is moving across the northern UK, and strong winds are being recorded everywhere.  We didn't do much today, so I have some photos of the ocean at various stages.

This was first thing this morning with very overcast skies.  It almost looks like a black and white photo.

A few hours later, it was getting its color back.

And here it's almost green in early afternoon.  Well, we are in the Irish Sea after all.
Although we learned from our guide in Belfast that the Irish really don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day like we do in America.  They're starting to a bit more, but mostly for the American tourists.  And St. Patrick didn't wear green.  He actually wore white robes with a blue sash.

And then later in the afternoon, it was back to a nice blue.

You can't really tell from the pictures, but it was quite choppy, and it would have been very bad for a tendering operation.  The captain said at his noon report that the wind in the anchoring location was gusting up to 40 mph, so he definitely made the right call.

There was a Q&A session with the captain this morning that was quite interesting.  He said that even while we're docked, we're using one of the four generators to keep the power to the "hotel", which is what they mean by anything other than the engines.  And the fuel cost for that ranges from $1,000 - $2,000 per hour.  The maritime industry is moving towards a system where ships will plug in to the port's power in the future so that the engines can be turned off.  I can't imagine how much power that will take from some of the smaller ports.  And I picture a huge cord with a man-sized plug at the end being dragged across the pier to be pushed into a giant receptacle.  It should be interesting.

This afternoon Michael Scott gave a lecture on Charles Darwin and how he was influenced by his studies while in Edinburgh to go on to study his theories of the development of life on earth.  It was good, but not as good as my favorite speaker, Terry Bishop.

Trivia was a 2 point win with 13/15.  We should be cashing in our points in a day or two for those oh-so-valuable prizes.