Windy app and at sea – 24 March

Sailing overnight from Antarctica across the Scotia Sea towards Sth Georgia Island for today and tomorrow. Drug supply getting low, think I’m ok but not prepared to risk seasickness.

Slept well, awoke to foggy conditions and only sea out the window. Laid in bed this morning as we still had 90mins to our breaky time. I actually watched the first tv of the trip. XFiles.

Each night we get the Daily plan for the following day. This can change and is updated during the day but is our guide.

Had a quick shower, breaky, a little time to phaff before heading down to Deck 5 lecture room for another Jonathan Lecture. This time ‘Epic Failure, Crowning Achievement: The life story of Ernest Shackleton.

A few facts:

S was 1 of 9 children, second born and first boy.

Dad wanted S to be a doctor but he was keen to sail and joined the Merchant Navy.

At 27 he joined the Geographic society and started pestering to be part of Robert Falcon Scott’s Discovery crew.

Shackleton was chosen to lead the first push inland.

He produced the first publication in Antarctica- The South Polar Times.

He included photographs, poems, weather reports, essays, cartoons, and scientific observations. Each issue was read aloud to the assembled crew.

Scott, Shackleton and Wilson were the chosen 3 to make the push to pole with dogs who didn’t survive.

British Antarctic Expedition established the The Nimrod expedition with Shackleton to lead. Along with Frank Wild, S raising funds, while in Australia he gains some funds on the proviso he takes some Aussies. S chooses Douglas Mawson and scientist Edgeworth David.

Shackleton Wild, Marshall and Adams, 4 men, 4 ponies, crossed Ross Ice Shelf, discovered a route south up the Beardmore Glacier.

Reach polar plateau, man-hauling on severely reduced rations.

Second expedition on the Terra Nova in 1910-12.

Herbert Ponting was chosen by S as first professional photographer in Antarctica.

The Endurance expedition left in August 1914 to head for Sth Georgia.

The ship was frozen in and trapped in January 2015. They realise that they will be trapped for the winter. Dogs were housed on the ice in Dogloos. Hurley captured it all. On 30th September the Endurance was crushed by the ice. The ship was abandoned as she splintered and crushed. 27th October and sinks on 21 November.

They then camped on sea ice.

Eventually they made tracks, on the 15th April 2015 they reached Elephant Island.

24th April S and 5 others set sail in the James Caird aiming for Sth Georgia. Worsley Capt of the Endurance is critical to success. 22 men left behind on Elephant Island.

After 16 days in open sea they land on the wrong side of Sth Georgia. So they hike over and slide down a glacier to Stromness Whaling station. Then Shackleton’s thoughts turn to rescue of the men at Elephant Is.

Using the Chilean ship Yelco he made it eventually to rescue the crew.

The story was big time news back home.

After lunch we headed upstairs to observation deck for a bird survey and to try some photos, but these buggers are just so fast.

Somewhere we found time to try and review some of the thousands of photos we’ve taken.

Then it was called there is another citizen science project – a cloud survey with Julia. Using an app called globe and you can do it anywhere. http://www.globe.gov

There is an app to download to assist.

Then it was time for Richard I’Anson talk “Creating Great Photographs. Photographing in Antarctica …some great advice. Pretty sure it would have been helpful last week.

More phaffing around until Cocktails and Canapés – cocktail today is Limon Drop Martini – we like this one enough for seconds.

Next up is Recap/Precap

Stephi led questions from the floor. Then reviewed the rocks seen.

Also talked about the tectonic plates and the fact we are sailing over the Scotia plate and the transform . (Named after Scottish ship, The Scotia)

Today we sailed across a trench that was 5.6km deep – Hesperides Deep. The Sir David Attenborough research vessel has been recently exploring the trench for life in the deep.

What did they find? Lots of little things – anemones, brittle stars, urchins

HOWARD

Conditions experienced today will continue tomorrow.

We need to redo our bio security process in preparation for Sth Georgia who have just spent bucket loads to eradicate non-native pest species such as reindeer. They used same guy who managed Macquarie Island clean up.

Also as we approach Sth Georgia, known for its bird life, we are careful about lights of ship and have to keep blinds closed, to prevent bird strike. If birds do land on balconies or decks let a member of E team know.

Tomorrow pm we will look ahead for the next few days. It’s going to be windy. So decisions will be made tomorrow. (Windy app)

Reindeer eradication- knocked off a lot – venison meat was distributed. The Barff peninsula was last enclave of reindeer. They flew a Sami family from Norway and supplied them for six weeks. Sunday arvo they received a phone call the family had finished off the reindeer in a week.

On the island if we see fresh rodent droppings we mark it down. Next step for Sth Georgia is weed eradication.

Tonight we ate dinner at Rockhopper Restaurant up on Level 8. It was magnificent. A choice of a couple of steaks, lamb chops, chicken and delicious sides. There was only us and Francesca indicated that the only other booking is the Captain and Hotel Manager. Sometime later Captain Artem arrived with 2 of his officers and Dr Sophia and they were joined by Osman and Pech (we learnt a couple of days ago at lunch in Rockhopper that Pech shares a cabin with her husband) when we enquired who it was she told me it was Osman, they met in Thailand and owned a small hotel in Bangkok. They were doing ok until COVID hit. Now they are both back on ships. This is the first time they’ve been on same ship.

Then it was downstairs for a trivia night. We tried hard. It was good fun

Our cabin is all closed up to avoid bird strike as we near Sth Georgia. The funny thing was today when we booked for dinner the guy at reception said he would give us window table. At this stage we weren’t aware that all doors and windows would be blacked out.

We’ve realised just how dark our room is without the blinds open.