Thursday 25th Back at sea and all caught up with journaling from previous days, I feel awkwardly energized by a long sleep and a few cups of tea. The ship’s historian, Steve, gathered us ‘round the lounge for story time. Today it was Shakleton’s adventure. While Steve is a particularly grumpy old man onshore, he is equally charming at storytime onboard. When he gives his stories, it is like he was there with the explorers recounting what happened as though he witnessed it firsthand. While the story of Shakleton is mostly about the Endurance, the earlier Nimrod expedition was Shakleton’s most successful attempt. Another interesting tidbit was that the endurance was originally the Polaris, a boat made by Belgian voyager ?Gerlache?, who thought it would be a good idea to set up a sturdy ship for ... read more

Tuesday 23rd Currently cruising back to South America, via Drake Passage, I thought I would use this time to look back only a couple of days, starting with this one, the 23rd. And it is definitely going to be good that I write things down now, as even just a few days between writing and I’ve forgotten the specific days of the past; the details may have been lost completely were it not for a few notes I jotted down on my Grand Hyatt paper and for the pics my uncle took which I could use to refresh my memory. The day began with a cruise through the lemaire channel, a one mile wide, seven mile long channel first discovered by a 1873 German expedition commanded by Dallman, but ultimately traversed by Gerlache, whose other notable ... read more

Sunday 21st Today is Sunday, and only because I have looked back at the previous journal dates do I know it is truly the day purported. This is what vacation should feel like. Last night, although I wanted to recount my day, I was a bit disappointed we were leaving the mainland to return to the Shetland islands, which is still part of Antarctica, but unmistakably a unique set of islands. Also, the cross over the straight made for some mild wave cruising, which put me into nausea mode by the time I was ready to sit down and write. Today, in anticipation of making it back to mainland, I swamped some mud after dinner. Between that and the activity filled day, I’m a little wired. But I’m also the only person sitting in the library ... read more

Friday 19th A 7am wake-up call told us the conditions made it too difficult to visit Brown Bluff, a piece of the Antarctic Continent rather than an island of. So, I fixed my eyes back to the pillow for a couple more hours. I even considered sleeping through breakfast, until I heard a scraping sound across the boat. I quickly jumped out of bed and opened the covers. I tried to pry my eyes open to see what was making the swishing sound, but it was too bright. I even counted, 1-2-3 OPEN, and couldn’t get them moving. So, I hobbled around the room looking for my sunglasses, picked them up and ran over to the window. Sure enough we were running through a thin layer of ice. And the sea was now becoming sprinkled with ... read more

Wednesday 17th The day consisted of trying to pry my eyes open. The waves weren’t huge, 12 feet at best. But the lack of sleep caught up with me (and maybe the pills enticed my eyes). This was a day at sea, so nothing was really on tap. And the boat acted as my cradle, rocking me back to sleep even if I woke up grumpy for some yucky or a ducky. I do remember a few waves coming quick, and tipping us just far enough to move the plates and glasses to the edge of the tables. This could be anticipated, though, since anytime a wall of water was near the top of the boat, this indicated it was a nice idea to hold on to something that was nailed to the boat. Since the ... read more