Somewhere between the Azores and the Philippines?
Strange things were afoot on this Friday, the 13th. Logically, we know that we must be only a few hundred miles east of the Azores, but somehow during the day, we’ve managed to cover some 16,000 miles to arrive on the other side of the globe…in the Philippines! Not one to blindly jump to supernatural conclusions, I must delve deeper to find the truth hidden in this bizarre set of circumstances.
The day started normal enough with breakfast served at its usual time and location. Thereafter, a presentation on El Niño and La Niña preceded a third workshop on the art of knots and splices. But sometime before lunch, signs of the unusual began to creep into hushed conversations throughout the ship. Snow flurries in England, you say? In May?! Surely you jest. Next came a rumor, later found to be true, that an hour was to be stolen from us tonight while we slept. Where was this hour going? Who was responsible? This is an outrage! After all, life moves too fast as it is. We can’t have blatant time thievery shortening our lives. This is the fifth one this trip! Still reeling from this shocking bit of information, we staggered into the dining room for dinner, only to discover that we had apparently sailed into the Philippines, probably the result of the tropically-inclined deck crew hearing about those snow flurries. Confusion was rampant, and mayhem threatened to overrun us all, but luckily our ever-graceful crew was on hand to put us all at ease.
We hadn’t gone to the Philippines; the Philippines had come to us. Our head waiter, Gaylord, greeted us warmly with a traditional Pinoy welcome and introduced us to a special feast of his country’s cuisine. The waiters and stewardesses were all beautifully dressed in traditional attire and invited us to enjoy the delicacies that their own Filipino chefs had prepared. We truly felt as though we were guests in their homes.
And as the evening came to a close, we realized that the day’s strange events all had logical explanations after all. The time loss, though somewhat disconcerting, is obviously just a result of traveling farther east. The ship was still on course in the Atlantic and definitely NOT in the South Pacific, not until 2006 anyway. And the snow in England must simply be a result of El Niño. Right? What’s that? It’s NOT an El Niño year? Oh no, the Apocalypse must surely be upon us…reverse course!
The, ahem, views and lunacy expressed in this DER are not the views of Lindblad Expeditions, and we assure you that the writer was simply off his medication for the day and will be confined to his cabin for the remainder of the voyage.
Strange things were afoot on this Friday, the 13th. Logically, we know that we must be only a few hundred miles east of the Azores, but somehow during the day, we’ve managed to cover some 16,000 miles to arrive on the other side of the globe…in the Philippines! Not one to blindly jump to supernatural conclusions, I must delve deeper to find the truth hidden in this bizarre set of circumstances.
The day started normal enough with breakfast served at its usual time and location. Thereafter, a presentation on El Niño and La Niña preceded a third workshop on the art of knots and splices. But sometime before lunch, signs of the unusual began to creep into hushed conversations throughout the ship. Snow flurries in England, you say? In May?! Surely you jest. Next came a rumor, later found to be true, that an hour was to be stolen from us tonight while we slept. Where was this hour going? Who was responsible? This is an outrage! After all, life moves too fast as it is. We can’t have blatant time thievery shortening our lives. This is the fifth one this trip! Still reeling from this shocking bit of information, we staggered into the dining room for dinner, only to discover that we had apparently sailed into the Philippines, probably the result of the tropically-inclined deck crew hearing about those snow flurries. Confusion was rampant, and mayhem threatened to overrun us all, but luckily our ever-graceful crew was on hand to put us all at ease.
We hadn’t gone to the Philippines; the Philippines had come to us. Our head waiter, Gaylord, greeted us warmly with a traditional Pinoy welcome and introduced us to a special feast of his country’s cuisine. The waiters and stewardesses were all beautifully dressed in traditional attire and invited us to enjoy the delicacies that their own Filipino chefs had prepared. We truly felt as though we were guests in their homes.
And as the evening came to a close, we realized that the day’s strange events all had logical explanations after all. The time loss, though somewhat disconcerting, is obviously just a result of traveling farther east. The ship was still on course in the Atlantic and definitely NOT in the South Pacific, not until 2006 anyway. And the snow in England must simply be a result of El Niño. Right? What’s that? It’s NOT an El Niño year? Oh no, the Apocalypse must surely be upon us…reverse course!
The, ahem, views and lunacy expressed in this DER are not the views of Lindblad Expeditions, and we assure you that the writer was simply off his medication for the day and will be confined to his cabin for the remainder of the voyage.
