Just because we didn’t touch land doesn’t mean it’s been a quiet day today, infact it has been anything but quiet!
Thinking back to just three days ago, when we were first out on the Zodiac Safari, the fog was so thick it was a little bit disappointing, not a failure but not the best tour either. Today’s was quite the opposite, we were awakened at 07:00 by an excited Captain, confirming that we had indeed achieve the desired goal of attaining the first passenger ship as large as us (and as you know we’re relatively small, so that’s most ships!) to have entered the southern polar circle aka Antarctic Circle, so we went more South than 66 33 47 degrees. This number is in fact a movable feast as it’s calculated from the maximum angle of declination the earth makes, which does varay.
Our scheduled time for Zodiacs was 10:30 so we managed to get three miles under our belt first, then go and add a few layers in preparation for our safari, which was amazing, we went out to a fast ice flow, which is frozen sea water, where seals often jump up to get a few zz’s. There was a Weddle Seal popping up to see us, but after a few minutes it got bored and vanished. Then we went on to get close(ish) to an enormous iceberg where again we saw crab-eating seals and birds - snow petrels and kelp gulls.
After an hour on the water we were getting cold (the air temperature was zero before wind-chill) so we headed home, through pretty tough swell, only to be turned away by the crew on the landing platform as the ship was about to reposition. This motion caused something on the platform to break, so we again had to wait a while until it was replaced. The swell was huge and it took a good while just to disembark our Zodiac person by person, behind us were another seven craft. One other was cleared, again taking ages to synchronise the swell with passenger balancing on the edge of the rubber wall and then stepping precariously into the arms of the waiting crew. After what seems like an eternity, the remainder were sent well away from the ship whilst Captain moved the ship,around to try and minimise the problematic swell. It was over an hour before the Zodiacs could return, and another half before all passengers had disembarked them - they must have been absolutely freezing by then!
Unsurprisingly it was decided to cancel the rest of the day’s Zodic Safari so three of the five groups didn’t get out. It’s a shame but the conditions here are unpredictable and the safety of both passengers and crew has to be the priority. We later started our journey back north, slowly passing some unbelievably large icebergs as we travelled.
We watched all this unfold as we continued our circuits, enjoying splashes of sunshine in between the near blizzard conditions, but we made it to seven miles before lunch, gained sustenance and then continued to ten.
Later in the day, yet another party took place, this one to celebrate our Antarctic adventure by jumping into the ice-cold pool! Normally a respectable 90 / 32 degrees, the water had been left overnight to cool down, and, we noticed, all yesterday’s ice props thrown in too. There was a surprising number of victims / volunteers to pile into the pool, including many staff, and finally the Captain arrived in his great-coat, removed it flamboyantly and then jumped in too still in socks, trousers and shirt! No way was I going to jump into freezing water, althouh on reflection if I can dive in Scotland, it’s probably no worse!
Tonight’s briefing was a highly charged affair, Captain came it to resounding applause, explained how significant it was that we had made it into the Antarctic Circle, how many records had been broken, and how proud of him mother would have been, all very emotional and as he left, he received a standing ovation from the entire compliment of passengers and crew present.
After the briefing two or three of the expedition staff give short talks on various aspects of Antarctic life, the last one usually quite humorous and sometime in bad taste as it’s immediately before most people head down the MDR for dinner. Today’s was a side splitting item in penguin poo trajectory and pressure - the English lecturer David who is truly if the madd professor genre has most in horticulture silence as he waxed on for 10 minutes on the grotesque subject, we were almost rolling around in laughter, both at him and the others who mainly don’t have a British sense of humour - priceless!!
We dressed for, and headed off to dinner, but sadly disappointment was awaiting us. The TK choices they had heavily advertised were both finished, which is a polite way of saying chef had a malfunction deciding how many to make. Not that what we did have wasn’t excellent, but it’s frustrating to not get what one is hoping for! I’m going to do a separate piece on food later on so I’m not labouring the point at present.
Finally it was the exceptionally talented Piano Man again this evening!
Comments
Post a Comment