What a night! Most passengers went to their cabins directly
after dinner, Cheryl and I were among that group. We quickly discovered
that laying down was the best position to be in. The ship rocked and
rolled all night long. Stuff was flying all over our room. We were
sliding back and forth in our beds. We eventually took a sleeping pill
and managed to get a few hours of sleep. Our little motion sick patches
are working well. These two crazy travelers are not sea sick! After
this little adventure Cheryl and I are thinking we could be part of the crew on
the Deadliest Catch!
We start each morning with
the plan for the day, which the Expedition Leaders call “Plan A”, sometimes due
to weather conditions they need to shift to Plan B, yesterday we ended up at
Plan C.
The worst conditions last
night, apparently we were hit with a rogue wave, which made everything in the
ship go flying. Waves breaking over the ship.
This morning we woke to
calmer seas, but we were told that this is only temporary. Conditions
will be the worst this afternoon and this evening. Not many people made
it to breakfast this morning. They opened the outside decks this morning
so the passengers can get some fresh air. We walked around the outside of
the ship, and enjoyed the fresh air. We are getting a full core work out
with all of these large swells.
This afternoon/evening we
will batten down the hatches and stay in our cabin. It is really
dangerous walking around the ship in these conditions. Sleep and movies
are in order…
Today we had additional
safety briefings, clothes/gear inspections for anything that we plan to take
onto the continent. They are very careful; making sure that we bring
nothing on the continent that will contaminate the
environment. Following the briefing we had a vacuum party, we
had to vacuum all of our outer layers of clothing that we plan to take on the
continent. (and our back packs that would be on landings with us.)
We need to respect this pristine environment.
We had an intense briefing
on helicopter safety. We will run drills tomorrow on the ship to ensure
we all understand what we need to do. The helicopters have a very
detailed schedule, when they call your group to get to the muster station they
mean it – you better be ready or the copter will leave without you. Our
Expedition Leader set very clear expectations today. Conditions for an
ice landing must be perfect and there are many factors that can go wrong.
We also needed to sign waivers for flying in the copter… made it clear that it
is dangerous and they will not be held responsible.
We received this message
before dinner tonight:
“Pizza night – due to an
unsecure weather forecast, we will keep dinner as simple as possible tonight”
Fun facts:
- 99% of
Antarctica is covered by an ice sheet
- the winds in
Antarctica can go around the globe without hitting any land, which means
the winds keep building up speed as it goes around
- The Emperor
penguin is the only warm-blooded animal that stays in Antarctica through
the winder
- 7 species of
penguins in Antarctica (Gentoo, Chinstrap, Adelie, Emperor, King, Rock
Hopper, Macaroni) There is also Magellanic Penguins, but that are not
considered one of the 7 Antarctic or sub-Antarctic penguins. Cheryl and I
have seen all of these except the Emperor.
Casualty Report:
- Cheryl was
slammed into our cabin door last night as she attempted to pick up a water
bottle that flew off the night stand – (she was not injured)
- We still
have two working iPhones (not that we can do anything with then since we
don’t have internet).
- As I was sitting down writing
the post a rogue wave hit.. an entire glass of wine spilled on me and my
laptop
