Tuesday, February 18th, 2014
Day number two would see not much going on but overnight we entered the dreaded Drake Passage. The Drake has a terrible reputation for not being very nice to voyage across. They say you only see 2 versions, The Drake Lake, which means nice calm waters, or The Drake Shake, which as you can guess means the opposite. Lucky for us we awoke to The Drake Lake, and I know I was very happy about that. No one wants to start 10 days at sea with seasickness.
The day started with some breakfast. As I said in yesterday's post, breakfast is a buffet affair so you can kind of arrive whenever (between the open hours), and you will find lots of choices. As I am finding more and more, the ship crew is entirely made up of Filipinos, and it did not take long to learn they are pretty awesome. Like other cruise ships all food and drinks (except alcohol) are included and our first two meals proved there would be no shortage of good food.
This is probably the most exciting thing we saw all day....seriously.
Jeff enjoying a coffee out on deck. It was chilly, it was grey and that really was about it.
This part of the trip is pretty boring, since there isn't much to see but there were a few things to get done. One of those was getting fitted for our boots and getting setup in the clean room. Last night we had been fitted for our new parkas (included in the cost of the trip), so with our boots we were all set to go ashore...once we found some.
Getting fitted for our Wellington (rubber) boots and little life jackets. We each had a little spot and some hooks so we could leave our winter clothes here to dry between landings. Hopefully we wouldn't get too wet but I think we all knew it was a possibility every time we stepped off the boat.
The view for most of the day. Managed to see one or two birds but that is about it.
The day was not simply naps and meals and boot fittings however. The crew kept us busy with all kinds of useful lectures, including those on the mammals we would soon be seeing, how to take good pictures with all the white snow around and of course our favourite topic....penguins.
There is also a gym.....if you are so inclined.
After dinner at about 1930 we crossed over what is known as the Antarctic Convergence. Although it was dark, and a group of us (Jeff, Jason, Vanessa and myself) were playing a riveting game of Go Fish (seriously, it was crazy.....or it might have been the drinking), this was a very important part of the journey. No we didn't feel it and it's not like fireworks went off, but it did mean that upon waking we should start seeing some animals. The Antarctic Convergence is the point where cold, northward-flowing Antarctic waters meet the relatively warmer waters of the subantarctic. Antarctic waters predominantly sink beneath subantarctic waters, while associated zones of mixing and upwelling create a zone very high in marine productivity, especially for Antarctic krill. This is important because krill almost entirely make up the diet of many of the animals we would be seeing in the coming days.
Safe to say the night ended much later than planned but I didn't hear anyone complaining.
Julie
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