ON SEA
…On the Rough Sea!
24th - 28th December | 2022
The next days we spend at sea. We had a lovely Christmas Eve and Christmas day programme on board and, again, fantastic food. We started to know some more people on board, which was nice to have a drink with in the evening. During the day you could still catch some sun, but the more we got to the south the colder and cloudier it got.
On Christmas day we got some sort of briefing from our Expedition tour guide Jan Bryde (www.brydegmbh.com)regarding the next days. We were supposed to visit the Falkland Islands for 2 days (one day Port Stanley and the next Port Howard), but the weather got really bad. It got windier (average 40kn, peaks 55kn) and had lots of waves (up to 4m), meaning a rough sea. As due to that bad weather, Port Stanley decided to close their harbour for 48 hours! That meant we will not visit the Falkland Islands.
However, Jan, as a very experienced expedition tour guide, found an alternative for us: visiting King George Island on the South Shetland Islands. That also meant, more days on the dancing ship!
My mum and I managed not to get seasick, as we stuck to the tip to keep our stomachs busy (lots of carbs!). Not sure if that was the secret, but it helped a lot! The trick with keeping an eye on the horizon didn’t work in our room, as just above sea level! Looking out of that window made you really dizzy in your head! Also was our room very much at the front of the ship, so every wave crashing along the boat we heard very well!
As Jan reminded us various times during the day "One hand belongs to the ship"!
On 28th December we arrived at the calm sea of King George Island of the South Shetland Islands. We went into Admiralty Bay, where finally the sea was calm. The anchor was set in that bay in front of the Polish Antarctic Station "Henryk Arctowski".
Here we should get out the first time with the Zodiacs to get as close as possible to the Large Glacier. As the expedition ship has to stick to the rules of IAATO (www.iaato.org) to protect Antarctica we ALL got our clothes and bags hoovered before leaving the ship.
As we were so many guests on the ship, we were divided into 3 groups of about 80 people. When it was the turn of our group, we would be going out in groups of 16 on the Zodiac. Each Zodiac got also one of the lectures, which was nice as they could show us certain things or point out something special. Our lecturer Bernd asked the captain of our Zodiac to stop the engine for a moment so that we could hear the ice of the glacier "breathing". Yes, you can hear that! Amazing!
Also were we lucky that the glacier was losing parts (in German "kalben"). That crashing and the cracking sound was fantastic to hear. The energy of this glacier - amazing!
Back on the ship I stayed on the open deck level to take some more pictures but also to take the scenery in. Oh did I mention, that we had blue sky and sunshine? And then turned up a hump whale right next to the ship and the zodiacs. OH WOW! It happened so fast, but it was so incredibly amazing! WOW!
After everybody was back on board, it was time for dinner. During the night the ship will stay in the sheltered Admiralty Bay, and only leave early morning direction Half Moon Bay, South Shetland Islands. Like this, we all should have a good night's sleep ;-)
I hope you are also amazed by the scenery of the South Shetland Islands. And there is more to come, so stay tuned for next week's blog!
Places | Cities:
King George Island (South Shetland Islands)
Health issues:
Still that tickly throat.
Special thanks to:
Jan Bryde (www.brydegmbh.com) to know Antarctica so well to find solutions.