What a night!! The storm that prevented us from stopping at Stanley kept the ship bouncing around a lot last night. About 2:30, we were awakened by jolting movements of the ship and the thundering noise of the waves hitting. That lasted several hours while we tried to sleep. I took my first Dramamine of this voyage, and it worked sufficiently. We weren't even in the Drake Passage yet, but it was the roughest sea that I have ever seen. The spray completely covered the balcony several times and the waves rolled up higher than our windows. Went back to bed and hoped for it to subside, but knew we were still at least a day and a half from the other side of the Drake. As it turned out, that was the worst of the journey so far, and the Drake today has been relatively mild. According to the captain when he gave his noon navigational report, the wind last night reached over 80 knots which is equal to hurricane strength on the Beaufort scale. Later today, I checked the wind speed a few times, and it was between 16 and 35 knots—much more manageable. We did pass right by Stanley last night with lights of the village visible from the ship, but we slept through not knowing when to look out for it.
This morning, we attended the mandatory briefing about how to behave in Antarctica and signed an agreement stating that we would abide by the internationally agreed upon expectations. There is a long list of rules about how to behave around the animals--how close one can get to each species, noise level expected, what to do if any become aggressive, and so on. For the most part, the animals are not afraid of people and might only feel threatened, and thus become threatening to people, when people get between them and their babies or between them and their food. The pathways for people visiting will be marked off by the expedition crew before any of the guests are allowed to land. We also had our gear checked to ensure that we were not carrying any foreign substances—plant or animal—on our things. Since most of our gear and outer clothing is new for this trip, we just needed to have our walking poles checked. People seem to be getting excited about nearing Antarctica, and there seems to be even more camaraderie building as we all discuss making it through such a difficult night. Yesterday, we received an invitation for tonight to have dinner with Aliscia and Richard, the photographers/videographers on board. I hadn't RSVP'd last night so this morning I was rethinking if I wanted to go. By the middle of the afternoon, the weather seemed to have settled down so I felt comfortable going to dinner. We had a nice time visiting with them and the other guests: Andrea from Fort Worth, David and Michelle from New Jersey, and Jackie and Lucy from Brisbane. I had a taste of lobster again. This time as garnish for corn and lemongrass soup. The other two times were main courses of lobster thermidor in The Grill and lobster Newburg in The Restaurant.
We went to the after-dinner show for the first time tonight. Mark Halsam who is from a small village in England but now lives in Los Angeles did some amazing card tricks. Hopefully, tonight the ride will stay smooth.
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Former TravelPod Member: alreadypacked
Joined: February 8th, 2009From: lives in Albuquerque,United States
"The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see." ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton
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