Ice, ice, baby (2) Life on board

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To set the scene…

Our trusty vessel, the Marina Svetaeva, was an ice-strengthened 1989 Polish-built, Russian-registered 90-metre passenger ship, recently acquired (previously leased) by Aurora Expeditions. While not an icebreaker, she was, effectively, only half a grade away, and we can certainly now vouch for her ice-bashing capabilities in the careful hands of her skipper, Kapitan Gena, and his Russian crew.

In addition to the forty-odd crew, there were about twenty mainly-Australian staff and lecturers to look after our gastronomic, intellectual and logistical needs, from cooking and running the bar, to manning the inflatable landing craft, Zodiacs, and co-ordinating helicopter flights, to educating us about the history and fauna of Antarctica, and other related issues.

The experts on board were a delightful group. Variously British, Kiwi, Australian and Argentinean, they were each totally unassuming about their expertise and experience in everyday conversation, yet “digestibly” informative, entertaining and generous in their lectures. Nor was their experience limited to their own areas of research; they had all travelled widely and some had even participated in history-making sailing and mountaineering trips to Antarctica, including the first ever ascent of Mount Minto, Antarctica’s highest peak.

The cuisine on board was surprisingly good, not least in view of the often-rocking conditions in which the four chefs had to work. I’d been warned that it would be “good, solid, keep-the-cold-out grub”, but it was infinitely better than this. Tina, a lively Kiwi, made a dozen or more varieties of bread during the course of the trip to accompany the lunchtime soup, and also came up with a delicious range of pastries and desserts, including a chocolate special on the last night whose sweet fumes drifted through the ship from mid-morning onwards. Jason, the head chef, was another Kiwi, but his greatest claim to fame from my point of view was that he had spent four years working in a hotel near Loch Ness. As a vegetarian, I was deeply grateful to the imagination of Noel who came up with a huge variety of dishes, many of which were infinitely more tasty (and with far more protein) than anything I would cook for myself.

Of the passengers, the vast majority were Antarctica aficionados; barely a handful of us were “Antarctic virgins”. (Was I too going to become addicted to this most challenging of continents…?) Not too surprisingly, I also found myself amongst the youngest, although a little way off the end of the scale as there were a couple of enterprising teenagers on board. Near the other end of the spectrum was the redoubtable Walt, an 83-year old New Englander who had assured the folks at his retirement home (which he nicknamed “the farm”) and his relations that this would be his Last Trip… but who returned from the difficult walk over crevassed fast ice to Shackleton’s hut at Cape Royds so energised that he is now determined to break it to everyone back home that, errr, actually, after all, it wasn’t.

With only a few exceptions, it was an interesting and congenial crowd. When not being lectured, fed or otherwise entertained with Russian lessons, bend’n’stretch classes or movies during our at-sea days, we meandered around the ship, drifting from conversation to quiet-time to conversation to snooze-time. Games of Scrabble and cards took over the two dining rooms. People retired to the library to read or watch the talented Charles make his miniature replica Nansen sledge. Others hung out in the bar, ostensibly diary-writing or reading but looking for excuses not to do so. Deck six, when not set up for the helicopters with the stern barriers lowered, was our “lap deck” as it was the biggest single level area on the ship. If the ship was not rocking too much, walking round this deck a dozen times or so was a guaranteed appetite-generator and alleviated a few exercise-demanding consciences. Standing in the bow was fun when we were going through ice - far enough away from the sound of the engine for the tinkle, creak and crunch of the breaking ice to be heard - but not advisable otherwise unless it was nearly flat calm. Up on the bridge, the hard-working Russian crew was very tolerant of the wave-, ice-, bird- and/or whale-watchers who appeared from time to time with in greater or lesser numbers and with greater (and noisier) or lesser degrees of excitement.

My typical at-sea day would see me oscillate between a variety of places. There was the cabin I shared with Mary-from-Queensland (who couldn’t get over quite how many clothes she had to wear at any one time in these new-to-her chill temperatures) where I Slept For Scotland (when not woken up by a passing friend), particularly on the way South (apparently my body’s way of coping with insipient seasickness), read, wrote my diary and sorted out photos, an increasingly Herculean task as the trip wore on. On the bridge, I would diary-write if the scenery was too addictive for me to tear myself away, and it could also be quite a sociable place. Alternatively, I would do my fly-on-the-wall impression, quietly watching the human goings-on inside and the wildlife and seascape outside. In the starboard-side dining-room, tea, coffee, fruit and biscuits were permanently on tap, the fresh fruit still appearing at the end of the trip (we became convinced there must be a fruit orchard, including a large number of vines, in the bowels of the ship). When weather and temperature permitted, I would wander outside onto one deck or another to be hypnotised by the waves or the ice, the swoop of an albatross or the flit of the snow petrels… until I got too cold and scampered inside for a warming hot chocolate, with or without an infinitesimal amount of medical brandy.

Later in the day, my main haunt was the bar. OK, this may not be unexpected, I accept, but here more often than not I would actually be working. The bar was run on a chit-and-honesty system but I found it fun to work behind the bar when the staff were too busy. It was a great way to meet people and, if I found myself in a difficult or boring conversation, it was easy to escape on the pretext of serving someone else or clearing up. Even when the relevant member of staff came on duty, I often stayed to help. The staff, including the lecturers, were much closer to me in age than the majority of my co-passengers and were, without exception, fun and lively people.

24-hour daylight is an amazing experience: I swiftly became a fan. It was wonderful to emerge after a couple of sociable hours in the depths of the bar - located in the bow on one of the lower decks, the bar lacked natural light and could be a little dingy - to find daylight still streaming through my cabin’s porthole. Up on the bridge, the Russian crew’s night shift would be working hard, and it was often worth a wee peak out of the windows, for example to see the distant ice cliffs of the Drygalski Glacier’s tongue glowing in the pink-orange of the never-setting sun. Alternatively, after careful application of a large number of additional layers, it was stunning to head out on deck for a brief stroll. We had one magical evening of the midnight sun when the ship was stationery in McMurdo Sound in new-forming pancake ice. Mount Erebus was finally showing his face, having been tantalising us all day, and, when we pottered out on deck at the back side of midnight, we were rewarded with the most wonderfully warm light on our faces, the ice and the surrounding mountains. I was not the only one who became gloomier when we headed north and found our “night” becoming increasingly dark and for progressively longer and longer. Perhaps I wouldn’t apply for that overwintering job at the US base at McMurdo after all…

Aurora, mindful of the need to help us avoid “cabin fever”, arranged some imaginative and entertaining one-off distractions, including a “happy hour” with mulled wine and cheese on the bow (sub-zero temperatures notwithstanding), a barbecue with some of the current human residents of Macquarie Island, and an auction in aid of various Antarctic conservation charities. But the event that caused the most hilarity was the Polar Plunge. Yes, I do mean a dip(-ette) into - and very rapidly out of - the Southern Ocean, and not in a calm patch of clear sea, but in a nice patch of “pikelet and pancake” ice while we were still well south of the Antarctic Circle, with the ship’s engines stopped and a Zodiac in the water to clear the new-forming ice so that plungers wouldn’t actually have to dive through it (though that didn’t stop one intrepid young man…). With an air temperature of -3ºC (almost balmy after the -28.9ºC wind chill recorded at Cape Evans a few days’ earlier), the sea would technically be warmer by a couple of degrees, but, not surprisingly, that argument didn’t persuade many people: only a dozen passengers donned their “swimmers” or appropriate alternative, and queued up to take the plunge. After a little gentle arm-twisting by my cousin and her friend who were both waitressing on board and who were first in line for this chilly enterprise, I found myself appropriately re-garbed and at the back of the queue. Well, we had a qualified lifesaver… though, having donned his kit (over his thermals and waterproofs, it must be said), Steve looked decidedly unimpressed with the idea of putting his qualifications to the test in seas a very long way away from the more temperate waters of his native New South Wales, and stayed resolutely at the top of the gangway. The ship’s doctor decided that her ministrations were so unlikely to be required that she appointed herself Official Photographer for the exercise, and also stayed at the top of the gangway. We were on our own…

… I’m happy to admit that I nearly pulled out when I reached the bottom of the gangway. An unexpected amount of swell caused the water to lap persistently halfway up my calves. Boy, was THAT cold! No way was I going to jump into more of that water… …but could I really walk back up the gangway and face everyone without having jumped? One of the staff later admitted having contemplated pushing me in as I was dithering there for so long… but belatedly remembered I was a lawyer (I knew my qualifications must still be useful for something). However, as with my last bungy jump in Nepal, I finally screwed up the necessary degree of recklessness, my pride beating common sense into touch, and jumped…

…I was asked a number of times afterwards whether the sea felt cold. To be honest, I can’t remember. It was certainly better than standing on that bottom step, but the whole experience was over very fast, a couple of staff waiting to haul me back on board and my room-mate at the top of the steps with a towel. Then I scuttled off for a warming shower and a very large dose of melted-chocolate- and whisky- enhanced hot chocolate. Once my blood had been persuaded to continue circulating, I could admit that it had been a fun experience, and it certainly created a wonderful camaraderie amongst the plungers. (Yup, I’d actually do it again… or so I now like to think, safe in the warmth of a friend’s house in Hobart and unlikely ever to have to put this statement to the test.) For the record, of the dozen of us newly-inducted life members of the Southern Ocean Plungers Society, with certificates to prove that we have “shown outstanding lunacy and disregard for frozen extremities by plunging into the near frozen and definitely frigid waters below the Antarctic Circle at Latitude 72º28S Longitude 171º27E”, eight were women. I’m not sure what conclusions should be drawn from this…

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Photos

effortless...
wandering albatross over the Southern Ocean

"White Knight" takes off for a recce...
...to see if there's a navigable route through the pack ice

here I go....
the "polar plunge" at 72 degrees south...

[bleep] [bleep] [bleep]
The words uttered by the subject of this photograph have been deleted lest they cause offence to the faint of heart.

if looks could melt the ice...
...Kapitan Gena the Basilisk...

the second iceberg, as it appeared on the radar
..but it was too misty to see it in the flesh. (I slept through the appearance of the first!)

watching the ice break...
... as the Marina Svetaeva is deliberately rammed into an ice floe

grub's up
the port-side dining-room

Comments

[Jo]

Count down to Antarctica
Hi Elizabeth, Loved reading your blog, thanks for all your feedback. My trip commences on the 7th Jan. I think I am geared up for it. So many clothes..... Any suggestions you can give me would be most welcoming. Am travelling on my own as my "friend"!!! pulled out at the last minute. I have downgraded to a tripleshare. Thus saving the difference in cost from when I first booked. US dollar rate being most hurtful to the Aussie dollar over the past 6 months. Hope the others I share with will be able to tolerate me... and vis versa. cheers Jo. .