First day at sea… well almost…

We are still in the Beagle Channel… stayed here all night.  Once the helicopters were on board the ship they needed to get fuel on board for the copters, waters were rough and made that transaction impossible.  So we stayed in the Channel all night and they would try to get fuel again in the morning.  We have not made much progress toward the Emperors… :^(

Waters are pretty choppy this morning and we haven’t hit Drakes Passage yet.  They are expecting the passage to be really bad.

Briefing first thing this morning, we were told that winds last night were greater than 45 knots!  We are now heading back to Porta Williams to try to refuel at the pier, the ship is a little too big for the pier but they believe it will work.  They were able to get the fuel for the copters on board very early this morning, but they could not re-fuel the ship due rough conditions.  All of the guests are wondering why they didn’t re-fuel the ship while it was docked in Ushuaia.

2:00 pm on Monday and they just finished refueling ship – we are finally on our way!  They continue to show more concern about crossing Drakes Passage.  Dinner is normally at 7:00pm, but today they are moving it to 5:30pm.  They want guests to eat and the staff have the ability to clean up before we hit the worse conditions.

OMG – we are just about at the beginning of Drakes Passage – winds are now greater than 50 knots.  Outside decks are now closed to guests!  Yikes!!  The hand rails down the hallways and staircases are now lined with empty barf bags…

Clearly our last trip to Antarctica was the perfect trip and not at all normal.  These trips are definitely weather dependent.

This is a very sensitive time for the penguins, they are all nesting with eggs.  We need to be extremely careful as to not disturb them.  We will be at least 15 feet from them during our landings. (unless they move closer to us – they don’t understand or respect the 15ft rule)

Wish us luck crossing “The Drake”!