Heading for Pack Ice

Today we slept in, plus we moved the clocks back an hour. Onboard ship, we had reset our clocks to be an hour ahead of the "official" time on South Georgia. This was so that when we had early wake-up calls, they were only early, like at 4:30, and not crazy, like at 2:30 or 3:30! So in addition to not having a wake-up call until 7:30, because we gained an hour, it was like sleeping until 8:30 – bliss!

We are having an easy day on board today. After breakfast, we made our photo selections to put into the participant slide show which I believe will be shown tomorrow evening. We also attended a talk by Joan Boothe on the Nordenskjold expedition, which involved a ship that was also trapped in the ice and sank. It was headed by a Norwegian guy, which is probably why it's not so well-known to us in the US. But it's an interesting story in which the total group is split into three smaller groups – one with 3 men, one with 6 men and one with the other 19 men I believe. They are all stranded on different parts or islands near the peninsula, yet all decide they need to take action on their own and happen to meet at the same time, so all are rescued. Mine is a crude retelling of what's a pretty interesting story, and Joan really brought things alive.

Then we went up on the bridge and watched for whales – we saw several blows off in the distance but not any actual whale bodies or tails. But it's always interesting to check things out on the bridge (plus it's warmer than our room!).

Following lunch, we posted some photos, so you should see those now, and then attended a few more lectures / slide shows this afternoon. The first was by Rod Planck on some photography on and around the Antarctic Peninsula. He really has some fantastic shots, and we are hoping for good things as well. Next we heard from Hugh Rose with a wrap-up of his lecture on glaciology and a preview of the places we're planning to stop at in Antarctica and the particular species to look for at each site. Finally, we heard a talk by Nick Mooney on telemetry (tracking penguins and marine mammals as they roam about the ocean to understand their range and ocean depth).

I forgot to mention yesterday that as we were coming back from Cooper Bay on Ted's zodiac, as we were approaching the gangway, we had a bit of a swell in the water. So the zodiac fell below the level of the gangway and came back up again and when it did, the gangway popped one of the chambers in the zodiac, deflating it. We had learned earlier that the tubes of the zodiac are not one big "bag" but rather a series of them linked by "doors" which are closed when the zodiac is sailing. This way, if one of the chambers is burst, the zodiac remains afloat rather than sinking. Apparently this chambering method was developed after the sinking of the Titanic. When a different ship sank in Antarctic waters a few years ago, it was built with the chambers but the doors were left open. Thus, when the ship ran aground, all chambers flooded and it sank. Apparently the lesson was not learned well enough!

The seas have calmed a bit today, and swells are now 2-3 meters rather than 3-5 meters. It's definitely a calmer ride, which we felt as early as this morning. We are still feeling good and hope this continues. Our room is a bit chilly. Just about the only time we've been cold is after a hike where we've sweated a lot, shed layers, and then stopped moving on the top of a hill, or when we are in our room during the daytime. It's fine at night, or maybe we just have good justification to be under the nice warm blanket then! We've been given a space heater to help take the chill off which we're occasionally using now.

Even though we're not doing a landing today, and got quite a lot of rest last night, we are still a bit sleepy. Perhaps it's the effect of having our bodies constantly adjusting to counteract the effect of the swells. I told Greg earlier that I could feel my thigh muscles working just sitting on the bed trying not to fall over at times! We definitely need the "exercise" since we can't seem to pass up desserts. Our favorites so far have been choclate mousse and a fruit napoleon made with phyllo dough and cream – yum!

Tonight at dinner we learned that we are going to sail past the South Orkneys in the morning, skipping our planned landing, and head for the sea ice south of Paulet Island, our first landing site on the east side of the Peninsula. So we will be at sea tomorrow and Monday and expect to see good ice by Monday afternoon / evening in the Weddell Sea. Then it's back up and down the west side of the peninsula, along with nearby islands.