En Route to the Philippines

Today as we continued on our course toward the Philippines, we sailed into the Bismarck Sea. The name of this sea was a reminder that the Germans colonized a number of Pacific islands before WWI, and many Germans immigrated to Australia. About 150 German passengers are on the ship, and we’ve become friends with two of them, Helmut and Brumhilde, who fortunately speak good English, because our German is nearly nonexistent. If they sneeze, we know what to say in German. As we go about our day, both on the ship and on shore, it is nice to run into people that we’ve gotten to know.

Late afternoon we crossed the equator, the line that separates the northern and southern hemispheres. Since I wrote about crossing the equator when we headed south, I won’t go into detail except to say that King Neptune and his court came aboard to initiate any Pollywogs, those people who haven’t crossed the equator before, who wish to become initiated Shellbacks.

King Neptune and His Court

Close to the equator rests an area of low pressure called the Doldrums. The winds in this area are so calm that ships relying on wind in their sails to propel them sometimes sat for long periods of time unable to make any headway. The surface of the sea is flat, almost mirror like. It was very restful sitting on the deck looking out at the calm water. However, for ancient sailors, it made for long, boring days as they waited for wind, probably becoming more frustrated with each day. Thus came the saying being in the doldrums. A ship’s experience in the Doldrums was the basis of some of the story in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I haven’t thought of that poem since high school, when I thought it wouldn’t have any relevance to my life. Who’d have thought that I would end up sitting in the Doldrums recalling that story? We just hoped that no one would kill an albatross that might land on the QE and we’d become stuck there.

As we sat on our balcony looking at the water, we felt sorry for any sailors who had been forced to sit on a hot ship in the Doldrums. They didn’t have air conditioning or a movie theater on the ship to help kill some of the time waiting for a breeze to move them along.

Calm Seas in the Doldrums

The hot sun shining on the ship can make the side of the ship the sun is hitting quite hot. In this age of air-conditioned cabins, it only makes a difference which side of the ship to sit on when going out on deck. Before air conditioning, ships traveling from England to India, the starboard side of the ship got the worst of the afternoon sun, making the cabins hot and uncomfortable. To counter that, passengers who could afford the higher price booked cabins on the port side of the ship going out. Coming back, the sun would be on the port side, so they would book cabins on the starboard side. Thus came the acronym POSH, port out, starboard home. If you could afford the cooler side of the ship, you were considered to be posh. 

To chase away the doldrums, the crew put on a Gala Afternoon Tea, which was quite a feast of cakes and pastries along with the usual afternoon fare. They hold this event once each segment of the voyage. The desserts are so rich, you can only take it once every few weeks.

Gala Afternoon Tea

To assuage any concerns that we might get stuck in the doldrums, the captain announced that we were entering the equatorial current, which would begin pushing us along. Later heavy rain, which lasted for two days, began to fall. With temperatures over 90F and 80 percent humidity, the rain helped cool things down and made sitting on the promenade deck more comfortable. The public rooms on the ship can be so chilly that we sometimes go outside on the deck to warm up. It made for a nice change sitting on the covered promenade deck watching the falling rain.

The Philippines is an archipelago with over 7,000 islands, so as we sailed toward Puerto Princesa through the Philippine waterways, we passed numerous islands, some with very tall mountains. This area is on the Pacific Ring of Fire and the islands were created by ancient volcanic activity. The Pacific Ring of Fire has approximately 350 volcanoes, which result in 80 percent of the earth’s volcanic activity.

As we got closer to the Philippines, we sailed through the Leyte Gulf, into the Philippine Sea, before altering course west into the Sulu Sea. The captain stated that the character Sulu from Star Trek had been named after the Sulu Sea. I don’t know how accurate or what his source was, but it sounded interesting.  

Tomorrow, Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines.

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