Thu 9 Feb 2017: is this the Last Post ?!

I wake up(*) at 6am and can't get back to sleep. Today is Thursday. As I understand it we will be at Bluff tomorrow, Friday. Yet we are booked to fly out on Saturday !? Did I misunderstand the ship schedule? Did I book the wrong flights?!

Did I really type "17 Feb" in the subject line for yesterday's post ?! So many questions... So much doubt.

No way I can sleep.

I get up and look at the itinerary. Yes, we fly home on Saturday. I look at the expedition schedule. Yes, the expedition ends on Saturday. So what will happen to Friday ?!

I get dressed. Go downstairs to the bar for a cup of tea. Get speaking with Kevin... who has also been confused but now has the answer:

First, we may have been a day early to Campbell Island. Possibly, we had to be in and out before the NZ navy arrived.

Second, we will have an extra day on the way "home". An extra day just puttering round in the shelter of Stuart Island. Stuart almost connects with the NZ South Island so, once we reach it, it's sheltered water all the way home. And then we do, indeed, reach Bluff -- and Invercargill -- on Saturday.

Phew.

(*) When I say, "I wake up" I mean, Deb wakes up, crawls over me to get out of bed, I can't help but be woken up.

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We're rushing towards the relative shelter of Stuart Island because there's a low -- rough weather -- coming in from the west. There's a strong headwind slowing us down. The plan is, to reach the shelter then slow down. If we hurry we will reach the shelter just before the storm reaches us. Then we will have a final day at sea -- with farewells and celebrations and such -- in the calm water.

It was a moderately rough night and still bumpy into the morning. "One hand for yourself, one hand for the ship!"

 

Before breakfast we shove all dirty washing into a suitcase. Suitcase into a cupboard. Various other untidy items into cupboards. Because today... we have our Open House. Last night at dinner I invited everyone, table by table. This morning I put up a notice on the main deck 4 notice board. Doors open at 9:30am.

Luckily for Deb, there are two lectures this morning. Well, one lecture on Campbell Island plant life and two short videos about the island. So Deb has an excuse to not be here for some of the time. Of course, those are the quiet times...

I get a couple of people early. Sarah, whose husband could not travel with her. (Hello Peter! Sarah misses you.) One or two others. Then a rush after the first lecture.

Deb and the crowd go to the second lecture. People see Deb at the lecture and remember our invitation. So, another small rush after that.

All good fun. Exhausting but enjoyable. I'm glad we did it. And Deb is now speaking to me again :-)

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Afternoon. Deb is at a lecture, it's an ad for the Heritage expedition to northern (or eastern?) Russia. She's worried that the talk will convince her that we need to go. I say, just avoid paying a deposit during the talk.

Meanwhille, the clouds have cleared and the sun is shining. After 25 days I have finally stopped wearing the thermal longjohns. The sea is as calm as ever. It's another beautiful subantarctic day. I'm wondering if the storms and fog reported by Spirit of Enderby are just wild inventions.

Three or four albatrosses have spent the afternoon escorting the ship. Soaring to either side. From twenty metres up, to wingtip almost touching the water. We see them through our windows.

As usual, Deb & I are bringing fine weather & great sights to our holidays :-)

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And this may be my last post to this sub-Antarctic blog.

Standard email (eg my gmail) does not work. These posts are sent via ship's email -- which will be closed down at 9pm tonight. So there will be a definite break from that time. I'm posting this early, just to be sure. I may send a later post, either on the way or at home. Or maybe not.

In case this is indeed the Last Post:

I hope you have enjoyed this blog. Perhaps as much as Deb & I have enjoyed our holiday. Perhaps even as much as I have enjoyed writing each post.

To my three or four known readers... and any others:

Thanks for reading... And...

Bye !

For now :-)

 

Wed 17 Feb 2017: Campbell Island again

Our second day at Campbell Island. There's the option of walking to the top of Mt Honey. We choose the zodiac tour.

We're in one of four zodiacs puttering up one side of the harbour. David tells us a bit about the geology (there were glaciers). A passenger tells us that the island is not volcanic. Rather, the tectonic plate drifted over a hot spot, the hot spot pushed up hot rocks to whatever was above it. There's a similar pattern of old volcanos in Victoria.

The main excitement is birds. That's a something something sooty, says one of the birders. Definitely a something something sooty, is the general agreement. What's a sooty? I ask. Oh, a sooty albatross, thanks.

There's a teal in the water, some albatross chicks in nests. A couple of ?erect crested? penguins... They breed somewhere else so must be here on holidays. It's all interesting to watch -- and I almost learn the names of some birds -- but we are there for the scenery. Which is very pleasant :-)

Deb spots a seal in the water. A bit later, the seal checks out our rubber ducky. It pops up nearby, jumps a bit out of the water, follows us. Then disappears again.

High speed back to the ship...

Where we spend some time defrosting. Relaxing. Waiting for lunch.

After lunch: We walk to Beaman something (saddle?). It's a lookout -- which looks out towards where we reached the far coast yesterday. It's boardwalk all the way... Easy enough on the  way up but we're tiring on the return journey.

The highlight is nesting albatrosses. And -- if we had waited an hour or so -- there may have been "gamming" albatrosses: in the evenings, they fly around. We walk up, admire nesting albatrosses, check the view, walk back again.

There are other birds. Little pippins, which hop round within a metre of us. We see two snipe. Hard to spot, apparently, they tend to disappear into the bush. Huh! we see two of them :-)

This evening is the variety show. Lots of fun, singing, dancing, jokes. There are several references to "Nick & Debra in the Heritage Suite", so I invite everyone up, tomorrow morning, for an Open Cabin. Deb is no longer speaking to me. Ah well.

After dinner we up anchor and sail away. Past the Otago, a large part of the NZ navy. They arrived this afternoon and will stay a few days, I'm not sure why. The Otago is grey. And perhaps a little bit smaller than the Shokalskiy. I couldn't see any Maori canoe paddlers.

I've had a report that the Spot Tracker appears to be working. It should now show us leaving Campbell Island. Heading north. To Port Bluff, our final port. (And for those who came in late: you can see the track on a website, the address is in one of the first few blog posts.)

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Tue 6 Feb 2017: the Long Walk

Sometime last night (or early this morning) we arrived at Campbell Island. We're anchored in Perseverance Harbour.

That's enough facts.

The sea in this harbour is so calm that we can have a shower -- without holding on.  In theory. With an early start (6:45am) and a long walk planned, we leave showers till the evening. So it's breakfast, pick up packed lunch, zodiac to shore.

It's a choppy, windy, cold ride in the zodiac.

On shore we are welcomed -- by a group of sealions. Half a dozen swimming, following the boat in. One sealion comes up onto the dock to challenge us. According to Phil -- the DoC man who worked here for seven weeks -- those sealions are always there.

Life-vests off, final shuffling of gear, we're off. On the "long walk", eight and a half km. Across the island, then back a different way.

We start up a wet, muddy track. This is a bit tough, I think. And from there it gets tougher.

The "track" is crowded in with grass and shrubs. There are alternate tracks though most are even less obvious. Tussock grass makes for lumps, easy to trip over, hard to walk over. We go up and then down.

This first stage is simple, just up, across and down to the next harbour inlet. There are sealions in and around the inlet. One does a couple of porpoise jumps out of the water. Most are just swimming or sitting. We walk around a couple sleeping in the grass.

We follow the shoreline to a creek crossing. It's a metre step down and a metre wide. I make the mistake of stepping down too close to the near edge -- it's deep, some water gets in my wellies. Just a bit, luckily. I think Deb gets a bit more.

We are facing a small sealion colony. Fifty or so of them, in family groups. We walk just a few metres inland of the colony.

Almost past but we have to move towards the water to get across a creek. One group starts staring at us, some make threatening noises at us. The noisy ones mostly look like males. I'm not worried -- until the biggest male -- the big daddy of the group -- starts to look threatening... But we keep moving and there is no real trouble.

We walk up a long and gentle slope. Sounds easy? It's slippery, lumpy, wet. There are bits of boardwalk. The boardwalk is sometimes overgrown, slippery, wet. We are glad to take a break -- morning smoko -- near the top of the hill.

The top of the hill faces a steeper drop, to the ocean. We are exposed to the wind... to the very strong wind. People are leaning into it. We have to watch how we stand or walk, or be blown off course. It's a steep drop ahead and behind but it's all grassy tussocks. Fall over and you'll just get wet and maybe bruised.

There are a few albatrosses sitting in the grass, generally looking at us but otherwise ignoring us.

aside: Deb says to mention that she has a cold :-(  One passenger boarded in NZ with a cold. Another person caught it. Now Deb has it.

So... We turn left and follow the coast. We're at the top of the slope, following the top of a ridge. With the wind howling in from the sea. (Well, blowing very strongly. There is no sound of howling.) More albatrosses.

Down the ridge and we are walking at the edge of cliffs leading down to the sea. Wow! look at the view of the sea, people say. Er no thanks, I think, I'd rather keep clear of the drop. Away from the edge the coastal view is still impressive.

We're soon clear of the cliffs, walking down a slope towards... well, towards another set of cliffs. But lower. We have great views of cliffs and ocean and a steep rocky island off the coast.

There's a final downhill... and it is rough. Overgrown track, mud holes, sudden drops... We reach a creek and walk down the rocky bed, with a bit of water, a bit of mud, some sudden drops -- but we can see where we are stepping. What a relief!

And we reach a beach. No sand, just "pebbles". Pebbles up to the size of two fists. Plus rocks. Such an open and pleasant spot :-) We stop here for lunch.

Deb and I pick a spot which is sheltered from the wind. (Sort of. There's no real shelter from the wind.) Our spot just happens to be away from everyone else.

After lunch -- there's a rockhopper penguin watching us leave. He stands close enough to be photographed by everyone. He watches as we scramble up a small cliff and into thick scrub.

The track up from the beach starts as a 45 degree climb. Twisting and turning through scrub. Not too bad really.

[Imagine a lot of tough walking. This second half goes up another hill and down again. The mud is thicker and more common. The climb is as high but not too sudden. When the faster walkers get a few hundred metres ahead -- they are often out of sight. Take "hard work" as standard. I'll just hit the highlights.]

The weather is cool -- perhaps ten degrees. It's fine with very occasional sprinkles of rain. The sun sometimes shines. A nice day for a walk...

A hut. Somewhere. Bunks, odds and ends for sleeping rough. A visitors' book. An aggressive sealion outside. Samuel faces the sealion, we all keep behind Samuel. The sealion gets close enough for Sam to tap the sealion on the flipper with his walking stick, the sealion doesn't seem to notice it. When we leave the hut, Sam is the last to leave.

Vaughn slips and falls down a hole. Is jammed bottom down with his head and feet up. No way he could get himself out. I grab his arm, first to stop him falling further. I raise him a bit, Harrison joins the lifting team, Vaughn manages to get himself out.

We're on a long, level hillside. Lots of albatrosses nesting in the grass. They don't move as we pass by. Several are nesting on our track, we move off the track to give them a few metres clearance.

We're off the track to avoid one albatross. It's standing up as we pass. There's a fluffy white bundle under it... It's an albatross chick ! Very young, very cute.

Albatrosses in the grass. Albatrosses flying -- soaring -- overhead. Brilliant !

Penguins are my favourite bird. Any penguin is automatically cute and interesting. Albatrosses are my next favourite. Not the brown ones. Not the sooty ones. Not the whatever others there are... Just the Southern Royal Albatross. They are everything I ever imagined an albatross would be: large, white, soaring magnificently. Now add to that: calm, and with very cute fluffy white chicks :-)

End of the walk. We are near the loneliest tree in the world. According to Guiness. It's a pine, planted many years ago. Tip pruned once a year for a Christmas tree. And it's the only tree on this island -- everything else is a shrub.

Zodiac back to the ship.

Tired. But -- Deb and I agree -- not as tired as after some rogaines. And -- like a rogaine -- as soon as the walk is over we start thinking, that was good, I wonder when the next one will be...

But "the next one" is up Mt Honey. Which is said to be as tough as today's walk, about as far and taking just as long. No, says Deb, a sightseeing tour in a zodiac sounds good. An hour later Deb says, I'd like to walk to the albatross nesting area. (That's 8km but an easier walk.) If we waited till tomorrow -- we could end up on the Mt Honey walk. Luckily, we had to put our names down tonight. And we didn't.

It was a tough walk but worth the effort. Deb says the scenery was magnificent. I say the albatrosses made it worth the walk. So we agree: it was a great day :-)

 

Mon 5 Feb 2017: random bits & pieces

Today we're sailing. North. Not quite the same as yesterday...

The sea is a bit rougher, morning lectures and videos don't happen, too much chance of someone falling over. We are encouraged to stay in the bar or our cabins. Though speaking of falling over: the bar only serves alcohol for an hour or two before each dinner.

I spend five or ten minutes on the poop deck. It's cold -- but has been colder. The temperature may have reached double digits. The sun shines. A woman is reading her smart phone on deck six. A man is just sitting, sheltered from the wind, enjoying sunshine on deck seven.

Deb watches the 1933 movie of Little Women. It's one of six movies on the tablet, the first we've watched. (I watched half an animated movie, Bling. That one starts with the message that ostentatious wealth is good, after that it's a standard cartoon.) I loaded Little Women because Deb had listened  to the book. Deb says the movie is much the same, perhaps a little less cloyingly (my word) sweet.

The afternoon sea is a bit smoother. With occasional extra rocking and rolling. Deb is at a video, something about ice. Five minutes on deck is enough for me. There's a woman, rugged up, listening to her music on deck six. There's a man listening to a book on deck seven, not so comfortable since the sun went behind a cloud.

This afternoon we return our cold weather jackets. We are definitely out of Antarctica.

Something else may happen. [Something else did happen. It's towards the end of this post.]

I'll fill in with a few items that I may have missed. Time is such a universal constant that you may as well assume that any action happened today. Or tomorrow. Or... perhaps I should stop reading Terminator and Philosophy...

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I lent the Terminator book to a fellow passenger. He, of course, enjoyed it, it's a great book :-)  I read just a couple of articles at a time. Now the book is returned and I'm ready to read a couple more.

Another passenger has been studying philosophy for a couple of years. He's interested in the physics stuff, I'm more interested in the social stuff. He did provide a good bit of philosophy. It seems that there are two -- alternative -- views of physics (by which I mean the hard side of science). (1) It explains reality. (2) It provides a model to predict reality. I like 2, it allows application despite uncertainty.

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When we arrived on board there were two "personal" mugs in our cabin. All tea and coffee on board is in ?machined aluminium? mugs. These two had the Heritage logo engraved on them. Well, they soon disappeared back into the ship's supply. But we grabbed two more and put them away. Now we grab a new mug each time...

And each day I have to bring maybe a dozen empty mugs back from our cabin. I'm sure we don't drink that much ! I suspect that the mugs are multiplying... I wonder what the two in our suitcase are doing.

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The ship historian, David, lost his day's update to the expedition log. His laptop fell off his desk and the open document "disappeared". He asked me to help. I think he had been pointed at Griff, who was sitting next to me. Aahh, we have both worked with computers so we are both experts :-)

As far as I could tell, the open document was empty and there were no autosave copies. I can sort of guess at a cause but could not help recover anything. He had to retype the morning's work. It's okay, he called me Griff, I didn't correct him, so it's not *me* to blame...

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Speaking of computers... and other technology. We have an Apple Mac laptop, an Android tablet and two smart phones. Each has its own purpose.

My phone is for calls in transit, ie when we have any phone connectivity. Our "emergency" phone with a lot of stored phone numbers. Three weeks into the trip I decided that it could also tell me the time, so I recharged it. It's dead.

Deb's phone is for Deb to listen to audio books. She makes even less phone calls than me. On this trip Deb listens to a book while knitting. She also has a few photos of cat and grandson, for the occasional Oooohh and Aaaahh.  I suspect the cat gets less attention than in the past... pre grandson.

Our tablet has half a dozen movies on it. Plus forty or so ebooks, for me. The tablet is also for this journal and for reviewing books as I read them (another blog). I type the journal as an email, with no formatting beyond paragraph breaks. The next step is to email each post directly to a blog.

This ship offers its own email -- with its own address -- but no internet. So I type a blog post into gmail first. The journal post is then cut & pasted into the ship email system, then sent to the blog. The book reviews just sit on the tablet, waiting for a free connection.

A son provided a Mac, an old one that he has replaced. I copied all my ebooks onto it so that I can read while Deb watches movies on the tablet. The movies are from Google and only run on Android. I also copy photos from our cameras, as backup. And I tried to type the journal on the Mac.

It's very reassuring to have a backup of the photos. And I've looked at some of them on the laptop screen. Which is bigger and better than the camera screen. I've done a tiny bit of work with one group of photos -- more on that later -- but most will wait till we're home. With more familiar organising and edit apps.

I tried to type the journal on the Mac... but it loses "draft" copies ! That would be annoying for the journal, I'd have to type it all and email in one go. (The ship email system also has no "save draft" option. And it tends to time out while I'm still typing.) All of the book reviews (eleven so far) are saved as draft, waiting for the free internet. So... all blogging and emails are done on the tablet.

I considered getting a 30-day free copy of Word for the trip. Glad I didn't. The email approach is tried and true -- therefore simple to use.

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We have two cameras. Deb bought a Panasonic Lumix just a week before we set off. I have the operating manual on the Mac. Deb has learnt a lot, the camera is a success.

I have my Pentax with two lenses. One for most shots, a very standard lens (35 to 50mm?). Another 70 to 300mm (I think). I've used the long lens quite a bit for photos from the ship. I prefer the standard lens for most use: if I can see it, the camera will capture what I can see. Can capture it a bit better, actually, unless I happen to be wearing my distance glasses :-)

Our photos are, "What we saw on holidays". Memories rather than technical marvels. Good memories :-)

I've collected a photo of each passenger and each Heritage person. My "photo edit" efforts have been to rename each photo with the person's name. And occasionally to rotate the photo. They are of very mixed quality but I can now "remember" people's names. If given time to get back to look at the photos...

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Finally (possibly) we have the GPS. The annoying "Tracker". Which may or may not be working. I think I now know which pattern of lights means that it claims to be working. I occasionally take it up to the poop deck, or shift it round in the cabin, to get it started again. But it still won't tell me where we are -- not till we get an internet connection.

Next time... I will bring a real GPS. Our Garmin would also settle the early debate on the ship, about the time of sunset and sunrise. Those times are just two of the built-in functions.

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A lot of the above is for my own learning: what worked, what didn't. Especially, what to bring on future trips. It may help other people... If not, don't worry. Tomorrow (or the next day?) we should be the next island. There should be *expedition* stuff to write about :-)

Oh, and Happy Hakiwaki Day ! (I hope this is not read by a sensitive Kiwi. I keep forgetting the correct name.) It's the NZ national day. Our menus have a vague NZ theme. Dessert tonight, for example, will be "NZ meringue". I bet it looks like pavlova but there are too many Aussies on board to claim the name.

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Deb has just headed off to a talk on the Antarctic treaty and politics. We've sailed into light rain and gloomy skies. There's a storm in the area but we should reach the shelter of Campbell Island before if gets too rough. If anything more exciting happens today -- I'll be back.

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Oh, did I mention yesterday that we had to re-do the fix to the sunrise/sunset window? The fix fell apart. Doesn't matter, the nights are getting longer. We also had a banging next to the bed. Just now and then. A loud banging, like a door slamming. No idea what it's from. Doesn't matter, we slept despite the noise.

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Ten to seven. We're playing cards before dinner. There's an announcement of a NZ Day ... thingy... in the bar. We go to the bar.

It's a Maori speech night interspersed with translations and songs. I think the songs are part of the speech night. Some information on the Treaty. Singing of the NZ national anthem. It's about as bad as ours but half in English, half in Maori. It's all interesting. (No, not the anthem. The whole thingy thing.)

There's a brief briefing on tomorrow at Campbell Island. Key points are, breakfast at 7am, briefing a bit later. (Deb remembers the time.)

Then we go to dinner with a New Zealand theme. Green-lipped mussels in spaghetti. NZ lamb or Stuart Island salmon. NZ meringue. It did indeed look a lot like a proper Aussie pav. Best meal for a while :-)

So. Time to rest. Big day tomorrow.

(For a day with nothing happening, I sure did write a lot.)

Sun 5 Feb 2017: still at sea

We're sailing.

Sailing north.

Sailing. Sailing. Sailing...

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It's time to fill some space with a description of our cabin.

There's the bedroom area. Remember the bedroom? With its double bed and the sunrise/sunset window? Deb has fixed that.

As the ship pitches and rolls, the curtain swings. So the light is let in -- sunrise -- then blocked again -- sunset. Over and over. And the light shines directly onto my pillow. (Then it doesn't. Then it does. Then...) I suggested sleeping with our heads at the other end. Deb couldn't handle that radical a change. She has, however, jammed the curtain in place. With a small towel to hold it closed. Brilliant! Though today, the cleaner took the towel to be washed.

Deb will fix the curtain again. Though the problem is not so bad now. As we head north there are more hours of darkness anyway. So less sunlight to shine in on us... on me.

The bed is closed in by walls and a cupboard. I know when Deb gets up in the morning. She has to sit on my legs on the way out of bed.

The bathroom is all in one. Toilet, handbasin, shower. Room enough to pull the shower curtain round when we shower. The curtain would swing and slide all over the place -- annoying when you're trying to use the toilet -- until we learnt to hook it through the shower handrail. The handrail is to grab when we're in the shower and the ship suddenly rocks. Another rail near the handbasin for when we're trying to brush our teeth.

There's a rubber mat on the floor which is an open rectangular mesh form. It's soft to stand on. Water drains through. And it feels dry again remarkably quickly.

There's a cupboard -- with a fridge ! Not that we ever put anything in the fridge. It's just nice to know that it's there :-)

"Deb's corner" has a couch along two walls, five cushions on one side, three on the other. Surrounding a coffee table. Deb has dumped various jackets, jumpers, knitting, books, magazines, on the couch. With enough spare space for her to sit with her feet up. She has left mittens, gloves, hats on the table. Today, they keep sliding off, onto the floor, as the ship rocks.

Next is my corner, with the couch that can unfold to a bed. It's made up of cushions on springs supported by wooden slats... Sit on the wrong spot and the slats are very uncomfortable. I sit on the right spot and stretch out my legs on the couch, for reading. Also convenient for the powerpoint behind me, to recharge the tablet that I read from.

Then there's the desk, facing forward. I sit at the desk to type this journal. Days like today I sit with my legs braced and one hand ready to catch the tablet. (Which is used for reading *and* typing.) Two good points of this desk: portholes and heater.

The heater is under the desk. As I sit here, my legs are very warm. Some days, too warm.

If I sit straight I can see forward, through a porthole. Occasionaly the porthole will be drenched with spray from a large wave. A little bit of water seeps in, there are towels which came with the portholes, someone's idea to absorb the water. Not that there is much of it. The sea is not really too rough.

There's a second porthole between "my" couch and the desk. Deb will stand at that porthole to check the weather. When I'm sitting on the couch I can take advantage of Deb leaning next to me.

On the desk and table -- and in the drawers -- is some amazing non-skid rubber matting. It's like a finer version of the bathroom matting: soft rubber mesh. Non-slip. Put a cup on the mat on the desk. The cup will not slip. The mat will not slip. Brilliant!

And that's our cabin!

With enough space in the middle to make it a challenge to cross the room. On our way to dinner tonight, the ship tilted and we both crashed into the wall by the door. Nothing damaged!

As we're constantly being told: One hand for yourself, one hand for the ship.

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Tomorrow, we continue to sail north.

Woo. Hoo.

:-)

Sat 4 Feb 2017: all at sea

All at sea. Sailing, sailing.

Adelie penguin video in the morning. Deb goes. I read.

Attenborough video on Antarctica in the morning. Deb goes.

I go through our photos. Just looking. It takes me quite a while to get the Mac to show them in date order... It wants to group them by "last seven days", "last 30 days", "older". Dratted computers that want to think for me.

The photos remind me where we were at the start of this trip...

It's interesting: My mind is full of ice and snow, floes, bergs and snow-covered islands. There are photos of bush & grass ! Seems such a long time ago.

After lunch, the final of Amundsen vs Scott. Phew! Deb goes, to see how it ends. (No real surprise.) And to get the popcorn. She brings back some popcorn for me. (I did ask:-)

I walk on the poop deck. For not too long -- it's still cold. I do laps -- holding on to the rails. By the final laps I'm confident enough to sometimes walk without holding on. It's not rough -- but there's a lot of swaying, side to side.

I see lots of sea. And one brown bird. (Skua?) An iceberg directly ahead -- which disappears back into the mist. Another iceberg off to one side. Low level excitement. I enjoy just being out on deck -- in all the weather. But I don't stay long.

Another lecture: Samuel on his fifteen months at the French Antarctic base (Dumont D'Urville). Deb is all lectured out and sleeps. Later, we hear that it was great: insights into Samuel, others, how they reacted to isolation etc. Ah well.

Dinner.

At lunch Griff was carrying Darwin's Origin of the Species. He seemed to think that it was good as a soporific. So at dinner I lend him my Terminator book. Say he can keep it till lunch tomorrow. (He'd better return it -- I  alternate philosophy with fantasy, I need something more than sword & sorcery.)

Sharon likes her meat well done, it's red rare. (Hers was cooked well done -- but delivered to someone else.) She sends the rare meat back. And waits... and waits. It takes a while to cook or re-cook one meal... We're all finished our main course when her well done meat arrives. But, she says, it was worth the wait.

Dessert is banana in blini. Deb almost gets dessert, it's taken back and passed to someone else. Eh?! Then our dessert arrives, Deb's and mine...

Round the edge of the plate is written, in chocolate icing, "40 years + 44 days" ! Yes, it's our just-missed-it anniversary :--)  With the original trip dates we would have been on board for our 40th. It is only our table that knows exactly what is happening. Deb is suitably embarrassed but only in front of a select audience. All very nice :-)

Now back to reading. And occasionally looking outside. At ... the sea.

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Fri 3 Feb 2017: South of the Circle

We are now... South of the Antarctic Circle !

And that is pretty much the highlight of today's excitement :-)

Stepping backwards in time...

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Breakfast. Eggs benedict, I think it's called? Poached eggs on some sort of muffin or scone, with creamy sauce on top. The chefs occasionally go overboard with breakfast :-) There is also bacon. Plus all the usual.

I have porridge. Several helpings. Plus some bread. Nice nut bread.

Then: Deb watches the second-last episode of Amundsen vs Scott. Then a talk on Weddell seals and their adaptations for deep diving. A foetus has similar adaptations. For some reason.

About 2pm -- we reach the Balleny Islands.  Great lumps of rocky cliffs, covered in snow. Much like Antarctica itself, we're told. Impressive. Cold. We're not sure how high they are, the tops fade into white cloud. That's the north island of the group. It may be called Young Island.

Soon after that -- we cross the Antarctic Circle ! There's a bit of a celebration. Mulled wine. (Deb is glad to hand hers to another passenger.) An oath. (We promise to be good ambassadors for Antarctica.) And the usual tough / crazy people stand up to be hosed with fresh Antarctic water.

Almost 7pm. We're parked off Young Island. Various tour staff have sailed off in rubber duckies to see if it will be possible to land. Latest report is, not on this side of the island. From what we can see from where we're parked -- I'm not surprised. The coast is all sheer walls of rock or -- more commonly -- sheer walls of snow.

I go outside to get a photo of a rubber ducky against the island. To get an idea of scale. My eyeball estimate would have the snow cliffs at five to ten metres from sea level to precarious top. [Later estimates from guides in the rubber ducky are at 20m.] The ducky looks very small, with the cliffs behind.

I get to the top deck and the duckies are out of sight. Are they really that small? Are they hidden in a curve of the coast? No idea. I watch for a while. No sign of them. I come back inside to warm up.

Takeaway lesson: If we do go out in the zodiacs -- I'll wear even more thermals than usual.

Agnes tackles me on my way back. When booking, the original schedule had us sailing through our wedding anniversary. I asked for a chocolate-themed dessert on that night. Agnes asks, do we still want some sort of later celebration? Why not? I say. An announcement of our 40-years-and-about-forty-days anniversary... For a change, let Deb be embarrassed by something other than me :-)

We sail on... further south. To the second Balleny island. Is this one called Buckle Island? Then the third is Sabine Island: a flat rock, a pointy rock, a bigger island. I think that there are quite a few smaller, possibly unnamed, islands in the group.

The search for a landing site continues. Meanwhile, we are waiting for dinner at 7:30. I'll come back to the journal when we know more. Deb is playing patience, I may take over. We have yet to win a game. (I won't mention our ongoing rummy, where Deb is still winning.)

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The ship stops near Sabine Island. There's a colony of chinstrap penguins there. We're hoping to find a landing site -- but not expecting it.

Deb and I stand on deck using binoculars and telecopic camera lens to look towards the beach with the penguin colony. We can see brown area with whitish patches. That's good enough -- the white is probably a pack of penguins :-)

Later, 9:30pm, an expedition update: The sea is too rough to get from ship to rubber duckies. (It feels fine & bumpy in the ship but the last step -- ship to zodiac -- needs to be very steady.) There are no landing sites. (Some that may be okay -- if not for the dangerous swell.) So... that's it. We're heading north again.

btw: The Heritage expedition leader regularly makes the point that this is an "expedition". Not a guaranteed tour but a plan to do whatever we can in the area. And when one idea is blocked -- eg Mawson's hut cut off by solid pack ice -- the expedition sets a new goal. Hence the Balleny Islands.

Very few people visit the Balleny Islands. The sister ship -- Spirit of Enderby -- was here a week ago. They saw fog and storm. So we're lucky, we at least have good weather and a good view of the islands :-)  And we have sailed south of the Antarctic Circle.

We've turned and are sailing north. Towards Campbell Island. Many more days of sailing. I'm disappointed to not have landed on Antarctica itself. (Time to start training for that Antarctic Ice Marathon ?!) I'm extremely pleased to have sailed south of the Antarctic Circle.

And we've seen plenty of penguins :-)

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Thu 2 Feb 2017: around the pack ice

We visit the ship's kitchen. Okay, this was yesterday. Yesterday after dinner. Time has ceased to have any real meaning.(*)

Deb had expressed an interest in seeing the kitchen. The chef sits at our table, on his way back to the kitchen. I ask, we are invited to visit.

Deb says, it's not as small as she expected. There are benches and equipment and storage and stuff round the outside. And a big island of similar stuff in the middle. The difficult bit is storage.

Food is stored (long-term) one deck below. There's a dumb waiter but only the two chefs. So if they need any food... one goes downstairs, loads the dumb waiter, comes up again. And in rough weather, food can't be left sitting on shelves. (Or it will be sitting on the floor.) So food is prepared in small amounts then safely stowed away, then on to the next part of meal prep.

Ten minutes work in a land kitchen could take an hour on the ship. With a lot of going up and down stairs. All the bread and desserts and meals are prepared from scratch, from basic ingredients. (Though I think there was mention of pre-made pastry.) Plus, the Russian cook for the ship's Russian crew is sharing the kitchen. Quite a challenge.

As a sample: Today's dinner is crispy duck wontons for starter. Choice for mains of beef casserole or peri peri chicken. Followed by orange & pumpkin seed cake. Nothing spectacular but all good food. Especially when you consider that it's made by two people for sixty diners (50 passengers plus ten tour staff).

Meals for a month, with all food ordered in advance. There's a rough meal plan but each day may vary from the plan. Some leftovers are recycled: unused potatoes appear in next day's salad, unused lamb tajine turns into lamb terrine.

And while I'm thinking of food: Breakfast is a choice of porridge and any three of eggs (boiled, fried, poached or scrambled), mushrooms, baked beans, fried tomatoes, bacon, hash browns... Plus cheese, cold meats, fresh fruit, tinned fruit, yoghurt, cereal. And bread, toast, butter, jam, honey, marmite, peanut paste.

Lunch is fresh salad, main course, cake or scones.

Oh, and in the bar there is 24 hour tea, coffee, sweet and savoury biscuits. The biscuits are the largish sort that you would buy as coffee-and-cake. A size that we share. These biscuits are not baked on board.

We don't have to starve.

I have a lot of sympathy for one passenger. She has a tooth abscess. She may not starve but she's not enjoying the voyage. Poor woman.

(*) Time is complicated. I've been reading a book, Terminator and Philosophy, a Christmas present. Philosophical concepts as applied to or seen in Terminator movies. Brilliant ! For example: If time travel does work, the Terminator time travel tactics were still pointless. No matter which model of time you use. And I'm confirmed as a staunch Hegelian. Because (1) This book has a chapter using Hegel's ideas and it is understandable. (2) I recently read about Hegelian dialectic and it's what I use. (3) Best of all, his writings are so poorly worded that it's almost impossible to understand them :-)

Between Commonwealth Bay (and the rest of that area of coast) and Ross Sea, there's a large finger of ice pointing north. Because we could not get into the planned area of coast, we're heading for Ross Sea. Which means that we are sailing east then north then east then south, to get round that outstretched finger. No Mawson's hut so Plan B is to get to Balleny Islands in the Ross Sea.

We sail east, then north. Then east again, to cut through a thin part of the ice finger. It's not so thin... we can't get through, so we sail back west, then north again.

Deb sees a penguin on the ice. We both see several whales And three seals on a floe. Deb sees more seals. I spend some time on deck -- chilly but fun -- and see more whales. Mostly distant whales. And lots of ice. Still exciting, though less exciting than the first few days.

Deb goes to a talk on Antarctic explorers. A talk on seals. Part five of the Amundsen vs Scott video. I spend some time reading on deck. And reading in our cabin. We spot several icebergs. One, quite near, is not as flat-topped as most. I take photos.

Not the most exciting of days. It takes time to get from point A to point B. (Philosophically, points A and B may not exist -- noit now, while we are not at either of those points. Just thought I'd mention that.)

Now -- after 9pm -- I believe that we have definitely rounded the finger and are sailing south. The sea is a bit rougher though not as rough as on the first few days. I have yet to be thrown off my seat.

We sail on...

Wed 1 Feb 2017: nothing much -- then whales

We're whale watching. Really :-)

Back to the morning...

It's a dull morning. We're sailing east. Avoiding some areas of ice -- so I'm told. We may as well be sailing straight, with nothing to see but sea in all directions. Though there are, indeed, patches of floating ice. Mostly to starboard -- south, I guess -- and very occasionally, all round.

Deb goes to a talk on whales. I walk the decks.

 

Sailing.

Deb goes to part four of the Amundsen vs Scott video. I walk the decks.

 

Sailing.

Deb goes to a talk on icebergs. I walk the decks.

At dinner I explain that I don't like crowds. The doc gives me a strange look.

After dinner...

Whale watching :-)

Nathan claims 21 or so whales in our vicinity. We're all over the ship, watching 3 or 4  whales swim and blow, perhaps flip a tail, then dive. Race to another part of the ship to see several whales do similar things in another direction. Then another group...

Great fun ! So many whales. So little that we can actually see. Just sometimes we can see a long stretch of body. Mostly it's a metre or two either side of a fin. So fascinating :-)

In Moby Dick, the ship comes across whales -- in a southern ocean, I think. There are hundreds upon hundreds of whales. Horizon to horizon. The whalers spend all day killing the things. We get excited to see twenty.

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Next: we're heading to a very large iceberg. The captain will loop us round. Then back on course towards Balleny Islands. Another 25 hours to go...