Drakes Passage… oh my!

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