Open Water - January 2, 2009

Well, we knew we were in open water during the night, as the ship was moving every which way. We had pitching, rolling and sometimes we felt as if we were completely airborne, which could hardly happen with a vessel of this size. But if you take the size of the Southern Ocean, ‘Kapitan Khlebnikov’ is just a tiny cork to be tossed around as the sea sees fit.

Early in the morning we were doing some serious pitching and the bow waves were of historical proportions. Then later we went into a more serious rolling movement as the wind and swell were changing. The upside of all this was that we now had the company of the magnificent albatross which were gliding effortlessly around the ship. I felt so unbelievably clumsy just trying to make my way around the cabin, while these birds just used the wind currents to soar without even a single wing flap.

We are a very stoic and heroic group of passengers. Most turned out for breakfast and life went on aboard as it should. At 9 a.m. Barrie gave his wonderful talk on ‘The Oldest & The Loneliest. Antarctica’s Prince Charles Mountains’. I can’t imagine anything happening on the ship that would

stop Barrie in his tracks, and of course he gave a fantastic talk and surprisingly a lot of people felt brave enough to climb to Deck 7 to hear him. It was well worth the trek.

Jonas had been going to have a ‘Wildlife Watch’ on the bridge at 10.30 a.m., but perhaps it was wise that he chose not to announce this, as I doubt the Captain and bridge officers really wanted too many passengers on Deck 10 in these conditions. However, there was a lot of wildlife to watch around the ship. We saw Adelie Penguins, Emperor Penguins, Minke Whales and of course many, many birds, including wonderful groups of Pintado Petrels.

At 11 a.m. Sue gave another fabulous talk ‘Behind the Scenes on "Blue Planet" ‘ in the lecture hall. It is really interesting to see how these documentaries are made, and the difficulties and personal emotions involved in making them. She has a fantastic way of telling stories and is an extremely interesting lady.

By lunchtime most of us had worked out how to get around the ship without falling down and breaking something, but there were a few faces missing from the dining room. As is normal, I think once the bridge heard Georgia give the announcement "the dining rooms are open for lunch", they wrenched the wheel hard left and we began to roll like hell. But hey, we are veterans now, and nothing was going to stop us from tasting the shrimp wantons with soya sauce. It was sad to be back to damp table cloths, and Lars had problems maintaining his bottle of hot sauce, but you do what you have to do. A glass of wine always helps and once you learn not to be tidy and not to pack the cutlery on the plate when you have finished the meal, this really prevents your neighbor from being stabbed with your fork.

I feel so appreciative of what the catering people must deal with in the galley preparing all this food and serving it perfectly as if we were on land in a stable restaurant. Hats off to these guys for how they handle things. It is enough for me to just do battle with the shower and try to climb into clothes without falling on my face. But to prepare intricate meals and serve everything so perfectly is totally beyond my comprehension. However, I think we all appreciated it very much.

At 3 p.m. another documentary was shown in the Lecture Hall, ‘BBC Planet Earth Series’, although I suspected many people took the time to have a nap.

Anyone on seasick medication was going to feel very sleepy and the best course of action in this type of sea, is to lie down and sleep. However most of us managed to make our way to the lounge for another wonderful afternoon tea which was followed by Nigel’s talk, ‘Macquarie Island –
Wildlife Haven’. Nigel gave a wonderful presentation on Macquarie and the range of flora and fauna found there. Due to the time he spent on the island, working with Tasmanian Parks and the Australian Antarctic Division, he had lots of firsthand information for us.It was ‘End of Holiday Sales’ in the gift shop, so Saskia was doing brisk business for last minute items. It never ceases to amaze me that if an article of clothing, or in fact anything at all, even a notepad or an emory board has a penguin on it, I will buy it and obviously I am not alone here.

Penguins are addictive and if we can bring back the memories of Antarctica into our everyday lives, then that has got to be a very good thing.

By dinner time the sea had calmed somewhat, or maybe we had all just become experts at coping with the rolling, but the swell did seem to be much less than we had experienced earlier. We had another fantastic dinner and of course all the talk in the dining rooms was about our hopes and expectations for arriving at Macquarie Island. It seems we should be there tomorrow afternoon.

Again we found we had darkness at night as we reached further north.