Crossing the Drake day 1 – 15 March

A swirly night, a fair bit of movement- sleep was a bit hard to manage. We have taken our seasick pills and so far, so good. Feel queasy but not sick.

Managed a shower with the rocking and rolling of the ship. Then down for breakfast and then readied for some bird photography up on the observation deck – deck 8. I donned the new coat and ditched my fleece. Just getting organised up there and we’ve been called for our Mandatory IAATO (International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators) briefing.

Howard mentioned that our crossing of the Drake Passage was a mild one.

Lots of info on do’s and don’t’s in Antarctica.

Fur seals and Elephant seals will be the ones we see.

No sitting, kneeling or lying on the snow. Anything that touches the ground has to go through the

Virkom- cleaning fluid on return.

Following the briefing we have to do our Day 3 COVID test, followed by a bio security check of our gear before going onshore, then we headed to the ‘muck’ room to check our rubber boots

Then off to try and grab some bird shots before lunch. Quite overcast and windy, so not sure how the photos will go.

We lunched today in the Rockhopper, a la carte lunch. Phil and I had a yummy shrimp taco. While lunching there was an announcement that two people had tested positive this morning. They are cabin mates and in isolation for five days. Bummer for them.

After lunch we grabbed a cuppa and sat while awaiting the first Lecture titled – Antarctica – Continent of Extremes: Geographical Highlights of the far South with Jonathan.

Mary and Steve are off having a snooze, Phil and I had a hot choc in the library, fixed the broken world globe and are killing time until next lecture on phone photography. Max did a great job of tips and techniques for phone photography- we all learnt something- whether or not we can put it into practice and remember it is another thing.

Sea temperature has dropped today from 9 degrees to 4 –

signalling that we have crossed the Antarctic convergence, really into the Antarctic regions now. There are some Wandering Albatross and petrels and fumars flying around.

We were next called to Captains drinks and an introduction to Captain Artem and his main team, including the Captain’s Welcome Toast. We learnt a little about Captain Artem’s background including that he was from a seafaring family with both his father and grandfather being sea captains. He then introduced us to the Sylvia Earle’s various departments ranging from, Chief Officer Mikhail from Greece, in charge of the Deck, from Ruslan from Ukraine who heads the Engine department, then Osman from Turkey in charge of the Hotel department and finally Sofia, our doctor from Colombia.

Followed by Captains welcome dinner.

We also learnt that we are now heading to cross the Antarctic circle and move through the ‘Gullett’ in a couple of days due to wind and conditions.

After dinner we went up to Observation Lounge to place our guess on where and when we will encounter our first iceberg.

Back to the room and Francisco had folded pjs into strange shapes. But bless his cotton socks he has given us a top sheet, as the room was quite hot.

The seasick tablets seem to have done the job. While feeling tired and unable to sleep and a little queasy this am I have not felt really sick.