It’s a little over a two-day sail on the Scotia Sea from South Georgia to Elephant Island in the South Shetland group. These are some seriously rough waters.
The most famous sailing of these waters was in 1916 by Sir Ernest Shackleton and 5 others in a small lifeboat. They left Elephant Island off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula and reached South Georgia some two weeks later. 900 nautical miles over open water in nearly hurricane conditions. Amazing. Our boat was bigger.
The first night and day were pretty rough. Winds gusted up to 34 knots with 4-1/2 meter swells. That’s considered gale strength on the Beaufort scale. Walking around on ship was a real challenge. Barf bags were restocked on the handrails. Both of us felt queasy and sleepy from the bonine but it did it’s job – no stomach toss! We spend a lot of time in our room or in the lounge.
There were several good presentations. Marcos had a good session on ‘South Georgia and It’s Geological Features’. Dick sat in on that one but decided to watch the rest on our room’s TV Cam due to the rolling. In the afternoon we watched Theresa’s discussion on ‘Whales of Antarctica’ on the telly.
No formal on-deck wildlife or cloud watching sessions today due to the conditions. We did observe many albatross and petrel following the ship. Of note, our first iceberg – ‘A76’ and it’s a honker!
Day 2 of the crossing was still rough but not as bad as the first. Wind was at 19 knots (considered a ‘fresh breeze’) with 2-1/2 meter swells. The boat still rolled a lot.
All the lectures are moved to the lounge on Deck 5 due to the movement of the ship. There are some good ones: Mattias on ‘Penguins of Antarctica’, Hannah J on ‘Human History of Antarctica’ and Marcos on ‘Antarctica, Fire & Ice’. Hannah’s talk was quite interesting as humans have only known the continent for a few hundred years.
The volume and variety of icebergs picked up. Some are quite massive. There was also a good chance to spot whales or other wildlife so many of us pop out to the deck with binoculars to search.
During the evening recap & briefing session, Marcos gave a really interesting talk on the nomenclature behind iceberg naming. Good stuff.
Lectures, napping and eating consume the day. Almost cat-like.
That being said, we’ve stayed very busy with the daily discourse of life on the boat. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the number of wonderful people we have met over the course of the last week or so. Every day, we have great conversations with people at lunch, in the lounge, at dinner. Dick’s kayak partner, Ralph, is a case in point. Turns out he worked in the steel industry as well (Worthington) and was quite familiar with a number of folks with whom Dick worked back in the day. He could even spell ‘EDI’! We’ve met great people from Canada (Shelly and Susan), San Diego (John and Leslie) and the DC area (Jim and Carole) among others. These types of trips are self-selecting in a way, such that people of common interest will be on board and we certainly felt that to be the case. Also on board are an engaged couple from LA, Joshua and Lauren, who are planning to tie the knot (weather permitting) on the Antarctic continent! Great Fun. – Mary
Penguin count: 0
Total trip penguin count: 633,150