5 days in 1

The past few days have been a little out of the ordinary…. as you would expect!! We set off from Ushuaia on Saturday evening and sailed down the very calm Beagle Channel to reach Drakes Passage. The evening on board the ship was relaxed with everybody sitting around chatting about the journey we were just embarking on. I went to bed around 11pm so that I could be fast asleep by the time we reached the Drake. Everything went to plan, I was fast asleep by the time we got there, but as soon as the boat started rocking, that was me awake. I spent the rest of the night rolling from one side of the mattress to the other, as the boat rolled around in the 2 metre swell.

We had an alarm call at around 8am the following morning, and me and my room mate both sat up and compared how we were feeling. I thought that I was ok, feeling that the rocking, whilst it had kept me awake, was actually fairly pleasant. My room mate agreed and we decided that because of the relatively calm seas, we weren’t going to suffer sea-sickness. So, we started to get ready for breakfast, and that’s when things started to look a little dodgy. We persevered though, and when it was announced that breakfast was ready, we both ventured down the stairs and stood in the queue. And that’s as far as I got – the queue!! The queue was fairly long and stretched out into the corridor. I’d been stood there for 5 minutes or so, waiting for my turn to go through into the restaurant. It was warm, it was rocking, there were no windows, there were lots of people…….need I say more? I ran out through the corridor, into the lounge and out to the back of the boat. Amusingly (or at least it seems so now!) as I was running through the ship, I was taking as many steps to each side as I was going forward!! I spent an hour or so stood outside with one of my colleagues as we both battled our queasiness, before we finally admitted that we needed to lie down. Besides, it was freezing outside and we kept having to go to our rooms to get extra clothes!

So, that was Sunday – spent in bed!!

Monday was pretty uneventful really. We sailed towards the South Shetland Islands where we would be meeting the advance party the day after. We arrived in the early evening and dropped anchor close to Bellingshausen. During dinner we had a surprise visitor. Robert Swan, who we weren’t expecting to meet until the day after, had mad an impromptu boatride from shore to ship to say hello. It was a really good surprise! He stayed on board for an hour or so before departing back to the ebase for his final night. Later on that evening, we had word that some bad weather was moving in and we were moving the ship to a safer position.

The bad weather from Monday evening continued with bells on during the whole of Tuesday. We were due to land at Bellingshausen station, but only half of our team managed to make it in the morning. I was left behind on board ship and had to wait to see if the weather was going to clear. At around 2pm it was announced that we were clear to go and had to get our cold weather gear on. What followed has to be the most miserable 4 hours of my entire life!! It was cold (-30 with wind chill), snowing, so very wet, slushy under foot, and very very windy. We spent an hour at the ebase and I was praying for them to say that the weather had turned really bad so that we could go back to the ship. But no! We were dragged out for a walk for 2 hours to see some seals (well we saw 1!!) and to see a bit of the island! I was so happy when I was back on the Zodiac boat heading back to the ship!

A couple of hours later I’d had a shower, something to eat and had started to warm up. It was only then that I could start to put the experience behind me!

Today has been the complete opposite! We were woken at 6.30 am to calm seas and clear skies. The wake up call was made by one of the team leaders urging us to get up on deck. We were entering iceberg alley!! And it was spectacular! Really really beautiful! Words really can not describe what it was like so you’ll have to wait for the pictures!

After that we had a few activities on board ship before getting ready to go ashore. In contrast to yesterday, it was an absolute pleasure! One of our activities on shore was to spend some time reflecting on where we were and why we were there. Myself and my partner for the exercise, Marianne, sat just by a huge rock. And as it turns out it was a bit of a main road for penguins! At one point, we had 3 penguins tottering past us within a couple of feet. It was just amazing. Then we went to do the obligatory photo shoot with our company flags, before heading back to the ship. I think for the first time I have really felt how amazing this place is!