Calm before the Storm!

The Sea was a little choppy as we enjoyed another fine dinner on Sunday and discussed the plan as indicated to us for the following day. However, the weather Gods did not look too kindly on us, as they have been doing! The swells grew higher, the wind got up and to say my suite and my body heaved through the night,would not be overstating the case! Some hardy sailors slept through it all, but not this one! We have been so lucky to date that coming out of the blue, we were a little surprised with this turn of events!

However, every cloud has a silver lining and the change in weather meant all off ship activity was cancelled for the morning This meant I had a leisurely breakfast, at a civilised time, as we cruised through the magnificent sights bordering Charlotte Bay. We sailed through unsurpassed and unparalleled scenes of beauty on a cold morning, below freezing, under a bright blue sky, ethereal light and mile after mile of untouched territory of snow and ice. Lots of ice flots, small and large floating alongside the ship, as she plows through, to drop anchor at the next mysterious place! Ship had to navigate these waters at no more than ten knots, so as to avoid whale strike mitigation.

Victoria, one of the wonderful expedition Guides gave a very informative lecture on Shackleton, whose name crops up regularly as you can imagine.

We got access to a viewing deck, not normally open to guests and had wonderful viewing of Icebergs and at last, some hump back whales! A jolly atmosphere prevailed with many of us taking pictures of one another and lots of the guides mingling amongst us eager to answer all our questions!

I met Dan one of the ships photographers, who hails from Moldova and who is heading onto the Artctic now, for the new season, Wy, from Southern China is an underwater photographer and another member of the Team and she is positioning out to Namibia and Capetown, where the Ship sails after we get off at Puerto Williams on Saturday. What an exciting life these young people have!

After a lunch on deck in the sunshine, it was time to don the heavy gear, the lifejackets and the heavy rubber boots for an afternoon landing on Portal Point, on mainland Antarctica! We are now 64 degrees South. A minute 0.005% of the world’s population have set foot on this 7th Continent, how privileged are we?

This area is very new to the Ships’ crew as weather conditions rarely allow access, so the Expedition Team, as well as ourselves, were equally enthralled to be landing on this snow covered dome, where we were allowed walk and commune quietly if we wished, with Nature.

Looking out over the nearby Glacier lake, I felt John so very close.

The Expedition Team are everywhere. They escort us on the Zodiacs, they are on land to impart more information to us and they are on the decks of the Ship when it is moving, pointing out and explaining areas and points of intetest. There are Ornithologists. Botanists. Geologists, Historians and many more specialists in their own area. This time, there appears to be a greater number of South Africans than any other nationality, although there are Finns. British. Canadian. Brazilian and those are just the ones I have met. I was thrilled to reconnect with Leslin, from South Africa, whom I had meet in 2022 in the Arctic. Wonderful knowledgeable Team member, it was nice to catch up at a cocktail reception last night.

Each morning, Nobi’s dulcet tones comes over the PA (usually about 7.a.m.) to call us to the Zodiacs.

From South Africa, she is in charge of us getting on and off tbe Zodiacs safely and ensuring we perform our bio security cleaning of our boots! Not an easy task, she has plenty of help.

Yesterday, when arriving back, the swell was so great, it was almost impossible to get the Zodiac into place for us to disembark! Bit scary!

This morning after a calm night’s rest I was up and out by 08.00 hours and off to Cuverville Island, home of the greatest Rookery of Gentoo Penguins in the area. About 200.000 pairs and boy did we smell them on approach! Rocks looked a dusky shade of pink, which results from their digestive tracts absorbing Krill as their standard diet and I will leave it at that!! Trent from.South Africa gave me an amazing insight into the habitat and skills of the Orca’s that are plenty in the area, but difficult to spot. He described them as matrialinear , as the females look after all the babies collectively. Nature’s amazing lesson to us all.

Also on tbe Island we saw a Whale carcass, probably coming up 100 years old. There was a decimation of Whales and Seals in this area in the early 20’s , thankfully, now a thing of the past.

Leavimg the Island, our Team leader Jonathan from South Africa, cruised around tbe most amazing Icebergs in the area. To witness cathedral sized Icebergs up close and blue hued glaciers, so near we could touch them, was an incredible experience. We had heard many explosions earlier in the morning, indicated the Icebergs rolling and occasionally could see the mist arising from those locations. The shades of blue seen in these dense lumps of ice, indicated a complete lack of air and the different shadings are similar to those variations on an artists’ palette.

They are just so beautiful to behold. As we watched and cruised around them, penguins were darting in and out of the water, an odd seals’ head would appear and no doubt there were many whales. Minkes. Orcas and Hump backs around in this crystal clear water, but sadly none appeared within our view. I tried to capture a shot of tbe water to show how clear it is, but sadly my photographic skills are not sufficiently succinct to give you a clear image!!! One could hear the crunch of the Ice as the Zodiac powered through these channels full of ‘bergs of all sizes and shapes.

I decided to stay on board after lunch today and have plonked myself in the 9th Deck Observation Lounge beside a Giant compass, in order to drink in this amazing spectacle laid out before me

In an hour’s time, some of my mad friends are going to jump off the side of the Ship into the freezing Sea to do their Polar Plunge, but more of that later!!!