Initiation
We are in the pack ice, so the entire sea is white around us, and it is snowing. Thicker than I've ever seen (including Canada). We are wrapped in a blanket of silence which hides the horizon and keeps us safe in our own world. It's as though there is nothing beyond us and our boat. Even the engines are quieter as we creep forward into the haze.
We have left the whales behind beyond the ice and are joined instead by seals and penguins. Just the outer sentries at this stage, but they are growing in numbers.
King Neptune boarded the ship yesterday with his bears to roughen us up as we entered the polar circle (those of us who hadn't entered it before-so more than half the ship). The bears came on the night before and raided our cabins (we were confined to them). The entire initiation was actually a lot of fun. We spent most of the time laughing. It was a bit like a pantomime, only we were forced to join in. You just had to ignore the fact that you were an ice-block as they started off with drenching us with sea water. While we lay on the helideck (it’s heated) to pay homage to the king and his queen. Individually we were then called up and our fines we read out (mine ended up being "so small that everyone else feels enormous", but it was actually "taking sole responsibility for waking up people at 4 a.m. on spotting the first iceberg"). We were then dunked in a bucket of seawater by 6 bears (in a tub that was continuously filled by a hose from the side of the ship). The ladies actually got off lightly- they were dunked less than the guys. I still thought I was going to die though. We then had to pay homage to the king on our knees-quite weird. I had concerned eyes asking if I was ok while the hands of the eyes broke an egg over my head, followed by brown gunge and some Tabasco-like sauce before the glorious heat of a warm hose.
We have left the whales behind beyond the ice and are joined instead by seals and penguins. Just the outer sentries at this stage, but they are growing in numbers.
King Neptune boarded the ship yesterday with his bears to roughen us up as we entered the polar circle (those of us who hadn't entered it before-so more than half the ship). The bears came on the night before and raided our cabins (we were confined to them). The entire initiation was actually a lot of fun. We spent most of the time laughing. It was a bit like a pantomime, only we were forced to join in. You just had to ignore the fact that you were an ice-block as they started off with drenching us with sea water. While we lay on the helideck (it’s heated) to pay homage to the king and his queen. Individually we were then called up and our fines we read out (mine ended up being "so small that everyone else feels enormous", but it was actually "taking sole responsibility for waking up people at 4 a.m. on spotting the first iceberg"). We were then dunked in a bucket of seawater by 6 bears (in a tub that was continuously filled by a hose from the side of the ship). The ladies actually got off lightly- they were dunked less than the guys. I still thought I was going to die though. We then had to pay homage to the king on our knees-quite weird. I had concerned eyes asking if I was ok while the hands of the eyes broke an egg over my head, followed by brown gunge and some Tabasco-like sauce before the glorious heat of a warm hose.
One of our team members had his shoulder dislocated while dunked. After relocation and pain killers he came back smiling as he didn't get egg/flour/brown gunk in his hair! Like I said-it was rough, but the entire performance was done in poetry, and the king/queen/bears’ outfits were just outrageous! To be honest, the only way to approach being initiated by grown sailors is to decide upfront that you will enjoy it no matter what.
We are moving really slowly now as the ice is thickening. It’s the 23rd December 4 p.m. and we have only moved 3 nautical miles in the last hour! We have 90 miles to go before we reach our current planed offloading zone. The mood of the ice is constantly changing. You just don't want to sleep in case you miss something! It’s no longer snowing and one can see the horizon again (this morning the first planned inspection flights where called off as it was snowing and one couldn't see further than 200m).
I send my love and thoughts for Christmas, my hugs and laughs. I tried to send a penguin, but he wouldn't go. I think he was slightly high.
It's so difficult to take photo's here, simply because you have to wear sunglasses at all times, and that totally changes what you see through the camera, and taking the glasses off for the photo doesn't help, as then you can’t see anyway! Still getting some rad shots though!
As an example of the extreme variability of this place: I started writing this yesterday morning (23rd December), from the snow blanket we entered a lily pond with only glaciers but no ice sheets to today, where we have been stuck in the ice! Three times! The longest was for an hour. It's all very exciting! This is also very close to the area where Shackleton got stuck, so with all the advances in technology and millions spent on ships, we hit exactly the same conditions and problems as early wooden boat based explorers!
Stuck in the ice again!
We are moving really slowly now as the ice is thickening. It’s the 23rd December 4 p.m. and we have only moved 3 nautical miles in the last hour! We have 90 miles to go before we reach our current planed offloading zone. The mood of the ice is constantly changing. You just don't want to sleep in case you miss something! It’s no longer snowing and one can see the horizon again (this morning the first planned inspection flights where called off as it was snowing and one couldn't see further than 200m).
I send my love and thoughts for Christmas, my hugs and laughs. I tried to send a penguin, but he wouldn't go. I think he was slightly high.
It's so difficult to take photo's here, simply because you have to wear sunglasses at all times, and that totally changes what you see through the camera, and taking the glasses off for the photo doesn't help, as then you can’t see anyway! Still getting some rad shots though!
As an example of the extreme variability of this place: I started writing this yesterday morning (23rd December), from the snow blanket we entered a lily pond with only glaciers but no ice sheets to today, where we have been stuck in the ice! Three times! The longest was for an hour. It's all very exciting! This is also very close to the area where Shackleton got stuck, so with all the advances in technology and millions spent on ships, we hit exactly the same conditions and problems as early wooden boat based explorers!
Stuck in the ice again!
And guess what, we are the local point of interest. We just had a empire penguin run over a kilometre to reach us as through we were the most curious beached whale it had ever seen! At the edge of the ice (about 3m from the ship) it waddled up and down, preened itself, lined up perfectly to dive, slipped and fell in! We just packed up laughing, 2 minutes later, 5m from its point of entry he catapulted back onto the ice, and picked himself up with the same self-conscience movements as someone who has just fallen down Jammie Steps during meridian on a Thursday!
Currently, the weather has closed in. Outside, all one sees is white, not even different shades. The air and land are totally indistinguishable, and the little sea that's visible (even though its surrounding ¼ of the ship-it is hard to see) is blackness with swirling shapes of white whipping across it. With the wind and the snow, outside is thoroughly unpleasant with every exposed piece of skin feeling like the cells are individually freezing.
Yet yesterday was beautiful. Windy, but clear. Most flights went off yesterday (all of which were meant to fly before Christmas). So everyone except the team dismantling Neumyer was with us for Christmas. The meteorologists managed to fly out on Boxing Day. But everyone else was grounded either by weather here or at SANAE.
I can hear you asking about offloading. Where do I even start? It’s changed daily with the conditions. So here we go:
Christmas we were still finding our way through the ice. On Christmas day the first inspection flights could take off. Their news is more useful than satellites, as we receive the satellites images a day late. A lot can change in a day. It was them who discovered the route we could take without getting stuck again. So with free sailing we reached the bay ice near Neumeyer (remember the iceberg blocks our route to SANAE). Could just see the base through binoculars! And as a colony of Adele penguins live just there, once we became locked into the ice, we were once again the local tourist attraction, regularly visited and investigated.
We had to move four times to move out of the way of moving icebergs and, after the offloading, creaking ice.
Ok the offloading itself-here we had discussions for ages. Basically, we could not offload directly onto the bay ice, as we could not reach the areas that were thick enough. The ice between the sea and thick ice was too thick for the ship to break through. After a day, the Germans came out from Neumeyer with a drill, moving to an area where the distance from the sea to the thick ice was thinnest, they set about drilling the ice ahead of us so that we could break through to the thick ice.
More discussions and a very difficult decision was made here. Even the thick ice we could reach was just under the needed thickness. So the eventual decision was to off load our caterpillars and drive them to the thick ice, then use the Germans smaller caterpillars to drive the loads to ours. This is what was done. The respect I have for the drivers is immense. They are all part of our army and remind me of the reccies I've met. On New Year’s Day the helicopter pilots went onto emergency standby: the drivers, who still had 3km to reach Neumeyer, were finding the ice was cracking up around them. They were driving on cracks of 1 foot in width. One only noticed the tension on the ship when we heard they had reached Neumeyer safely. They are currently on the 40 hour drive (bad weather) to SANAE.
On the 2nd the ice where we were offloading and standing broke up. Reason for this was the iceberg that was next to us decided it wanted to glide towards us at 11 knots. We moved fast.
A mixture of all these left us with no option in using the bay ice for the remaining offloading. Luckily we had offloaded the heavy stuff, and could fly off the rest. Due to weather, we haven't finished that.
So we haven't started the buoy run. And we have lost critical time for it. Further delays are going to be caused by the fuelling. We haven't been able to reach the refuelling station at Penguin Bukta due to two icebergs moving into it on the 2nd of January. Today, one of them moved. But that still doesn't help us really as we cannot take the direct route to it as that is filled with very thick ice. We cannot go around the iceberg as it will take 6 days with no guarantee that the path will still be open. But it doesn't matter right now any way as we haven't finished the offloading, and have to wait for the weather to clear for that. Ironically we had beautiful weather when we were just outside flying distance! It will take a further 6 days to refuel when we can.
So on that, as the buoy run was meant to take 20 days to South Georgia and 20 days back. And they will not increase the voyage time. Either way our research may be severely crippled on that leg.
Anyway, as there is nothing we can do about any of the above. Life on the ship has carried on. And with the festive season and New Year’s, we have had a pretty special time. The above worries are really covered in 5 minute discussions as nothing else can be done about them.
Christmas and New Year were both really special. During the day on Christmas Eve we put up lights and a tree in the bar. On Christmas Eve our team arrived at the bar in cocktail dresses and suits. The entire bar emptied. And refilled with collared shirts and clean jeans! We had an amazing party that night which included standing on the ship’s Bow in cocktail dresses. We were told by the officers on duty on the bridge that, that made their Christmas, as it was a first. Once again we were wished Merry Christmas by penguins! As the ship made no effort to acknowledge Christmas (ok, I lie, Merry Christmas was typed on the menu in size 4) we were thanked for making Christmas different from every other day. Amazing what dressing up can do (and shaming everyone else into doing so too). In our team, we had arranged a Secret Santa. So we had presents to open on Christmas day. This involved sneaking into the lab and placing a present under our tree without anyone seeing. We all sat down to unwrap them together. Well, we were meant to. Here, the breeding influences of spending so much time as a child on an airfield kicked in. The first helicopter flight went off in the middle. So I disappeared to the monkey deck to watch it - which made my Christmas. There is something truly spectacular in watching a helicopter take off surrounded by water and head off across ice.
Currently, the weather has closed in. Outside, all one sees is white, not even different shades. The air and land are totally indistinguishable, and the little sea that's visible (even though its surrounding ¼ of the ship-it is hard to see) is blackness with swirling shapes of white whipping across it. With the wind and the snow, outside is thoroughly unpleasant with every exposed piece of skin feeling like the cells are individually freezing.
Yet yesterday was beautiful. Windy, but clear. Most flights went off yesterday (all of which were meant to fly before Christmas). So everyone except the team dismantling Neumyer was with us for Christmas. The meteorologists managed to fly out on Boxing Day. But everyone else was grounded either by weather here or at SANAE.
I can hear you asking about offloading. Where do I even start? It’s changed daily with the conditions. So here we go:
Christmas we were still finding our way through the ice. On Christmas day the first inspection flights could take off. Their news is more useful than satellites, as we receive the satellites images a day late. A lot can change in a day. It was them who discovered the route we could take without getting stuck again. So with free sailing we reached the bay ice near Neumeyer (remember the iceberg blocks our route to SANAE). Could just see the base through binoculars! And as a colony of Adele penguins live just there, once we became locked into the ice, we were once again the local tourist attraction, regularly visited and investigated.
We had to move four times to move out of the way of moving icebergs and, after the offloading, creaking ice.
Ok the offloading itself-here we had discussions for ages. Basically, we could not offload directly onto the bay ice, as we could not reach the areas that were thick enough. The ice between the sea and thick ice was too thick for the ship to break through. After a day, the Germans came out from Neumeyer with a drill, moving to an area where the distance from the sea to the thick ice was thinnest, they set about drilling the ice ahead of us so that we could break through to the thick ice.
More discussions and a very difficult decision was made here. Even the thick ice we could reach was just under the needed thickness. So the eventual decision was to off load our caterpillars and drive them to the thick ice, then use the Germans smaller caterpillars to drive the loads to ours. This is what was done. The respect I have for the drivers is immense. They are all part of our army and remind me of the reccies I've met. On New Year’s Day the helicopter pilots went onto emergency standby: the drivers, who still had 3km to reach Neumeyer, were finding the ice was cracking up around them. They were driving on cracks of 1 foot in width. One only noticed the tension on the ship when we heard they had reached Neumeyer safely. They are currently on the 40 hour drive (bad weather) to SANAE.
On the 2nd the ice where we were offloading and standing broke up. Reason for this was the iceberg that was next to us decided it wanted to glide towards us at 11 knots. We moved fast.
A mixture of all these left us with no option in using the bay ice for the remaining offloading. Luckily we had offloaded the heavy stuff, and could fly off the rest. Due to weather, we haven't finished that.
So we haven't started the buoy run. And we have lost critical time for it. Further delays are going to be caused by the fuelling. We haven't been able to reach the refuelling station at Penguin Bukta due to two icebergs moving into it on the 2nd of January. Today, one of them moved. But that still doesn't help us really as we cannot take the direct route to it as that is filled with very thick ice. We cannot go around the iceberg as it will take 6 days with no guarantee that the path will still be open. But it doesn't matter right now any way as we haven't finished the offloading, and have to wait for the weather to clear for that. Ironically we had beautiful weather when we were just outside flying distance! It will take a further 6 days to refuel when we can.
So on that, as the buoy run was meant to take 20 days to South Georgia and 20 days back. And they will not increase the voyage time. Either way our research may be severely crippled on that leg.
Anyway, as there is nothing we can do about any of the above. Life on the ship has carried on. And with the festive season and New Year’s, we have had a pretty special time. The above worries are really covered in 5 minute discussions as nothing else can be done about them.
Christmas and New Year were both really special. During the day on Christmas Eve we put up lights and a tree in the bar. On Christmas Eve our team arrived at the bar in cocktail dresses and suits. The entire bar emptied. And refilled with collared shirts and clean jeans! We had an amazing party that night which included standing on the ship’s Bow in cocktail dresses. We were told by the officers on duty on the bridge that, that made their Christmas, as it was a first. Once again we were wished Merry Christmas by penguins! As the ship made no effort to acknowledge Christmas (ok, I lie, Merry Christmas was typed on the menu in size 4) we were thanked for making Christmas different from every other day. Amazing what dressing up can do (and shaming everyone else into doing so too). In our team, we had arranged a Secret Santa. So we had presents to open on Christmas day. This involved sneaking into the lab and placing a present under our tree without anyone seeing. We all sat down to unwrap them together. Well, we were meant to. Here, the breeding influences of spending so much time as a child on an airfield kicked in. The first helicopter flight went off in the middle. So I disappeared to the monkey deck to watch it - which made my Christmas. There is something truly spectacular in watching a helicopter take off surrounded by water and head off across ice.
Boxing Day was by far one of the best days on the cruise. It certainly stands up on its own. We were in open water again sailing between icebergs. The day was gorgeously warm (-2'C) with no wind. The sun gave the sea an almost tropical appearance. I spent the entire day sitting on the monkey deck, just watching, allowing the entire place to just creep into my very being.
Old Year’s Eve was amazing. Made special by being allowed on the ice!!!!!!!!! We had made hats for the party we had organised for that night. And hit the ice with our crazing hats. The Penguins, on hearing that the Oceanographers were landing on the ice in the latest summer collection, ran to meet us. They ran till about 2m from us! Then came to a slithery halt to watch us.
