"On a Friday morning, just about 10 o'clock, the cruise ship Explorer, began to reel and rock. Husbands and wifes, little children..." - got into lifeboats in the -5C temperature, and were picked up by another cruiseship before anything serious happened to them except a few cases of hypothermia. This was right off of the Antarctic Pennsula, today. I've been following the store with some interest as I am going to be on a cruise ship in the same locale in about a month. The Explorer, with 100 passengers and 54 crew, hit an iceberg which punched a fist sized hole in the ship, and judging from the last photo I saw, sank it. (very slowly). "Well", someone in authority said, "Antarctic travel is dangerous". Now they tell us?

Luckily the seas were calm, and while chilly, the weater was not bad. We're expecting warmer weather. And we're expecting the Marco Polo not to strike an iceberg and sink. Still, its something to think about. Lifeboat and evacuation exercises are manditory for sea vessels, but on every cruise ship I've been on (5) they are also cursory, poorly thought out, and in some cases incorrect in details like the route one would take to get to the lifeboat. If we have hours like the Explorer passengers and crew did, ok; but if its an emergency that requires quick action, then as the song continues, "...lost their lives."