Kaibab Journal - Antarctica Day 2

King penguins		Farthest south!
Back	Day 2 - At sea, south of New Zealand	Next

This journal is constructed as one web page for each day of my journey, including the arrival day in Auckland, and the final two days, which I spent in Hobart. I have tried to keep the picture images of a reasonable size for easy web page loading. To see a much larger view of (practically) any image, just left-click on the photo.

The first night aboard was . . . well, uncomfortable. Not being used to living on a ship, the rolling, gentle though it was, did not encourage me to sleep. Also, it was quite hot at the wharf in Lyttleton, and very warm all evening. The ship isn't air conditioned, but then it is a polar vessel! Keeping the porthole window open helped a bit, but not much.

Today was a good day to get around and see the ship. When the bow and/or stern are open (and, later, during rougher seas, they were closed), you can walk a fair loop from the flying bridge, on top of the ship (I think it would be deck 9), down stairs on one side (port or starboard), loop the stern and bow and then back up the stairs. I noticed a few crew members doing this regularly - I suppose it is one of the few ways to keep in shape. The ship did have some weight equipment and, I think, a treadmill. But, they were down low in the ship and, after the first day aboard, I didn't venture down there.

Lots of meetings today, since we won't be seeing anything . . . except for birds, that is. We met the Quark staff; Art Ford gave his first geology lecture [Art has been doing geology in Antarctica for about 40 years and always has cool stories/slides from the older days.]; we had a birding lecture from Nigel; and a zodiac boat safety review from Tim. Before dinner, we had champagne in the lounge and met the captain and officers (all Russians) of the ship.



View from the stern; helideck has fencing around it for . . . accidents.	The bow, from the flying bridge.	Waving from my room.

I met a host of new passengers today, as is to be expected: Colin and Bana at the coffee and danish set up in the lounge before breakfast [I don't think I made another one of these the whole trip - I was always getting up just in time for breakfast!], Brogan and Kazue at breakfast, and one of the German couples for lunch. Quite a few passengers have been to the peninsula, and some have been on this trip before.

After lunch I decided to try my anti-seasickness patch. We have been having some rolling seas and I understand that once you do get sick, you just have to wait it out. So, better safe than sorry. Our doctor on board, Steve, gave a little informal talk about seasickness in the lounge. I think well in excess of 85% of us have brought something to take for it.



Sand? Or, equipment?	A Cape Petrel. Saw lots of them.


The stern; two icebreakers can travel in tandem if the need arises!	The lifeboats. Very spartan. All metal. We ducked inside the first night during a fire drill.	Zodiac boats at rest.