The GCW Tour, Buenos Aires & Antarctica: How to Keep 200 People Entertained for Sixty Hours

At the "peak economy" cruising speed of 12.5 knots, it's about sixty hours from Ushuaia to Antarctica or vice versa. On the way down, that time is filled handing out jackets and boots and generally getting everyone ready to walk on the ice. Plus, everyone's excited and doesn't care what they do.

The way back is a slightly different story. We've had bridge tours and lectures -- "It's Going to Get Hot: Global Climate Change in the 21st Century," "The Nursery of Ice Giants: The Development of a Snow Flake into a Glacier," etc. -- and there must be half a dozen partially completed jigsaw puzzles, most with a missing piece or two, spread out on the tables in the meeting area.

And even with all of that going on, there's still a lot of extra time in the day -- especially for people who are now ready to move on to the next stage of their journey.

But the bridge tour made for an interesting twenty minutes, mostly for how disappointing it was. You gotta say this for computerization: it's pretty much made the modern work space generically universal. "This is the computer I use to bring up my patient's records" looks a lot like "this is the computer I use to bring down the global economy" which looks a lot like "this is the computer I use to drive the boat."

But, to give the boat a slightly unique flavor, not everyone gets a chair. So that's different.