I've made several aside references to the Nor'easter forecast for the time of our embarkation and the first day of the trip. I'm writing this in Portland, after having experienced it. I don't know it for sure, but I think our Philadelphia departure may be the only one from the northeast this weekend that was not directly impacted by the storm.
Our only real impact was from some delayed provisions, according to the captain. That caused about a 90-minute delay in sailaway. The sailaway party also moved from the pool area to the Spinnaker Lounge. We were doing an informal event, a sailaway toast, in the Spinnaker already. But with the whole ship event moving into the space, I felt it would be just too crowded and would make it difficult to do our event. I may have become more social over the years, but not to the point I can manage a large event like that well.
Panorama of Spinnakers and the Philadelphia Airport before the party was moved indoors.
Sailaway
Watching sailaway from our balcony was an educational experience...as was watching us docking this morning in Portland (I'll get to that later). Here's a short video:
[embed url="https://youtube.com/shorts/-m4qr-lj5tM?si=QCElTr-oEs7rQi_m"]
At Sea
The trip was really not any more rough than three years ago on Escape. We actually ended up going a bit further out to sea than the previous trip did three weeks ago. In the map below, the blue line is the earlier trip, and the red one is our actual track.
Here's what it looked like while I was eating breakfast in O'Sheehan's:
[embed url="https://youtube.com/shorts/jzTT1RhRLtA?si=S_KLK2g8pEyJp4U-"]
Pretty sunset view last night
Honestly, the trip was rougher for us after the turn north last night. Our aft room was really responsive to the rolling of the swell, and we were getting thrown around a good bit trying to walk around in the room during the night. Fortunately, the corridor to the bathroom is just wide enough for me to walk down and hold both hands out at shoulder height to maintain stability.
It wasn't that bad when we got into the public areas, and the roll was side to side from our point of reference. It was much smoother when we got into the bay and arrived in Portland.
[embed url="https://youtu.be/b_lJ2bWYdsA?si=0DRkG5tqtU1OCxN7"]
It has been a misty day in Portland, and cold. Hopefully, this will push on east out of the area and leave things decent for Bar Harbor tomorrow. Even the wave action in the bay at Portland today would make tendering difficult in Bar Harbor.