All at sea (again ......)!

Thursday 21 December
Nothing much doing today, still very rough and there are not many in the dining room at meals times. We are ok and spend most of the day either eating or attending lectures. The first was on geology, (I managed to fall asleep sadly), but perked up for the one on cetacea (oh all these lovely new words I am learning…). The differences between baleen and toothed whales, what different types we are likely to see (if I can drag myself out of the warm onto the freezing deck that is), how to spot different whales by their “blows”, (no comments please!!). I mean did you know that the Southern Right Whale has two blow-holes and no dorsal fin - that is how you spot it? Me neither, but I do now. Personally, I want to spot a humpback but each to their own I suppose. Final lecture covered all sorts of sea birds and seals we might see on the Antarctic Peninsula and also, interestingly, a briefing on the programme for the eradication of rats which cause a major problem around many seabird colonies!! So, to the bar for more white Russians and then bed….

Abandon Ship …….. Friday 22 December
The one sound you never want to hear on this ship is the alarm and the captain calmly saying abandon ship! Luckily it was to put out a huge fire in the sauna - slight anomaly here as the sauna is about the size of a shoebox… Am now looking out of my window at the crew all in life jackets, lowering the lifeboats (or at least just swinging them out) and checking out how they look in the mirrored effect on the outside of these windows – they can't see me looking at them in other words! I wonder if they really would abandon ship wearing baseball caps and sunnies!!! Temperature today is 0 both on land and sea, but wind chill factor adds another –10 degrees. Off to a lecture on the geology on Ice (in all its many forms) then it will be mealtime again – sigh! Few facts here, Antarctica is 5 ½ million square miles, is the 5th largest continent, the ice at the South Pole is 1 ¾ miles deep and the mean annual temperature is – 50 degrees.

Arrived at Elephant Island early evening and after supper had a zodiac ride in the snow to visit Wild Point where Shackleton left his 22 crew members whilst he went off to get help from the whaling station in South Georgia. It WAS a wild, cold, snow and icy ride but just what we needed after 2 days cooped up onboard. Zipped around more icebergs, saw Wilson’s storm petrels and more chinstrap penguins, (am getting to be quite an expert on penguins and will probably bore you all to death when I get home) had several G&Ts and hit the bunk! Tomorrow the Bransfield Straight and Antarctic Peninsula for real.

A few more photos to whet your appetite for Antarctica .....

* Turret Point - bleak or what!
* Chinstrap Penguin
* Iceberg from Zodiac
* Our favourite way to travel!

Love Annie & Doug