No Ice Yet...

The morning schedule today was similar to yesterday's, with the wake-up call at 7:30am, breakfast at 8:00am, and lectures starting at 9:30am. We set our clocks back an hour again last night so now we're back on the same timezone as when we left Ushuaia (i.e., GMT-3). The seas have calmed a bit since yesterday making it easier to walk around the ship and probably giving some relief to anyone suffering seasickness. Many people have been avoiding the lecture room since it is a large windowless room at the bow of the ship and does move around quite a bit in the large swells. You can also hear when the large swells hit the bow of the ship – they are big "booms."

But we've enjoyed a number of lectures today. The first was by Dag Nevestad called "Why Did Scott Die?" and was about the race to the South Pole between Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundson. Amundson won, and was all around better prepared. Scott did make it to the Pole, but his entire team died before making it home again, largely due to poor planning and poor decisions made along the way. The most significant of these errors was likely planning provisions for a party of 4 men, and then adding a fifth without increasing the provisions. Bringing a library of books rather than appropriate food for the ponies (another bad idea) and dogs were also contributing factors.

Then we had some time to relax and finally read our books for a bit, ate lunch, and relaxed some more until 3pm when we attended a talk by Doug Cheeseman, which was really more photos of places we expect to visit in Antarctica itself. We are hoping to find good ice by tomorrow evening – sea ice, icebergs, etc. - of interesting shapes and colors. Then we hope to make landing on Paulet Island on Tuesday morning. But it's all very weather and wind dependent so we'll have to see.

Another talk this afternoon was by Joan Boothe on the discovery of the continent itself. Most of the information was what she'd written in her book, but she has a way of bringing the history alive and adding a bit more color to her talk than is in her book. Anyway, it was a very interesting talk to be sure.

After dinner, we attended the second photo slide show of the trip, with any photographer who wants to submit photos entitled to submit up to 5 each (we submitted 10 between the two of us). Then Bruce Miller, a photographer on staff, puts them together for everyone to see. As with the first presentation, there are some incredible photos and some that are just hilarious or full of character.

Tomorrow we are at sea again so expect to attend a few more lectures. There is also a photographic critique that will be held, where two of the professional photographers on staff, Rod Planck and Tom Murphy, will critique whatever photos participants want to submit. They will give perspective on what worked and didn't work in the photo from exposure, composition, lighting, etc. It should be interesting, but we're not going to submit any photos for that; instead, we plan to learn from others!

We continue to feel good (and lucky). We spoke to the ship's doctor today, a lovely woman from South Africa, who said she estimates about 50% of the passengers (and some staff, including Ted Cheeseman) are feeling seasick to one degree or another. Meals are definitely less crowded, but not as sparse as we had expected. However, you are advised to eat something light even if feeling ill, so I suspect people are taking that advice. Several people have said they basically have a meal then return to their cabin to lay down as that's when they feel the best. We are hoping that the seas calm for our last day out, which they should as we approach more ice in the water. Ted has said that the crossing from South Georgia to where we are now has been the roughest he's ever experienced – but it doesn't seem all that bad to us! We expect relatively calm seas around the peninsula – so the wild card remains the Drake Passage for the return to home.