Wednesday morning and we are still in the Drakes Passage.
Last night was much calmer than the night before. Somehow we missed the
nasty storm. It is snowing this morning and VERY cold!
Sebastian (the Expedition
Leader) just briefed us on the ice conditions, he has been watching satellite
images daily – when we started out our journey the ice was blocking the way,
the next day it opened up, but then it closed again. Today it is
open! Conditions change drastically. The crew has a saying when you
are walking around the ship “one hand for the ship and one hand for you” first
they mean you should have one hand on the handrails. Now today we are
saying “one hand for the ship and the other hand has fingers crossed!
At 2:20pm we finally made it
across Drakes Passage and we began entering the Nelson Strait. Much
calmer waters now. The temperature has really dropped. Snowing most
of the day.
This afternoon the
expedition team planned our practice run of the helicopter operations.
Just as it was our turn to practice, they stopped operation due bad
weather. We will try again tomorrow.
They do this trip once per
year and they have not been able to make an ice landing for several
years. Fingers crossed that conditions will hold and we can make it to
the Penguin colony!
We aren’t getting many steps
on our days at sea, but we are racking up the number of floors we have climbed.
They are trying to lay out
plans for tomorrow, we will in the Antarctic Sound – one of the most beautiful
places on Earth. Sunrise is at 2:30am – Cheryl and I will most definitely
be up to watch the sunrise. Then our group is scheduled for our practice
run on helicopter operations at 6:00am.
Casualty Report:
- Nothing to report
- And we still have two working iPhone
No comments:
Post a Comment