Tag: Drake Passage

First Iceberg

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Our crossing of the Drake Passage was pretty mild although a few people on the ship had trouble with motion sickness.  They gave out motion sickness medication for free.  We are now done with the rough water and the ride is much smoother.  We are told that we are coming into the South Shetland Islands and should start seeing ocean birds, whales and land.  I meet quite a few people I haven’t seen before – they were hiding out in their rooms with motion sickness.  Most people are out on the decks looking for the first signs of Antarctica.  I’ve spent many hours on the boat now eating and napping.  I have a cold so there is not much energy for anything else.  The cold brisk air feels so good to my sinuses. There are smallish white birds doing laps around the ship.  They fly in a pack of 4 or 6 and come in from the starboard side, fly around in front of us in formation and then fly off to the port side.  There are other large birds that fly by from time to time, petrels and albatross, checking out the ship.  Then we see what looks like jumping fish.  When we get a little closer, you realize it’s not jumping fish, but penguins.  They are fast, graceful swimmers.  They jump like tiny dolphin.  They look so much smaller than I expected.  We started seeing whales too, mostly humpback whales.  The first few were exciting and you tried to get a photo or video of them, but my camera was never quite in sync with the whales.  Just when you thought, darn, I missed it, there was another.  If you looked off in the distance you saw 6-10 more.  So many whales and penguins.  I stopped trying to photograph them (it’ll just look like a dark spot on a picture) and just enjoyed watching life jump in and out of the ocean waves.  I enjoyed watching the white birds circle the ship.  Then someone said they saw the first iceberg.  I looked off in the distance where they pointed.  All I see is a random white wave every now and then.  Then I look at the actual horizon line.  It is a fuzzy white line out in the distance.  I notice that there was one spot where the white line looked like a jagged tooth sticking up sharply instead of being a bit fuzzy.  It was very white.  First iceberg!  It looked hours away so I turned my attention back to birds and whales.  About 20 minutes later I can see the iceberg.  It feels official that we are in Antarctica now.  A little bit later I could see dark shapes on the horizon.  That seemed odd.  I don’t think they are dirty icebergs.  Oh, duh, land.  There was mist around the land forms.  It was overcast above them.  It appeared that the land was being born from the mist.  Dark shapes would appear out of the mist and then become more detailed as we got closer.  Soon islands came into view.  We have arrived to the South Shetland Islands.

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Shower in the Drake

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Things, Uncategorized1 Comment

The Drake Passage is the water between Argentina and the Antarctica Penninsula.  It is where the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans meet near Cape Horn.  It is supposed to be some of the roughest water in the world, if not the roughest.  We have to cross the Drake Passage to get to Antarctica.  We are lucky and have pretty good conditions for the almost 2 days it will take to cross.  They said it was a 2 on scale of 1-10.  The boat is rocking side to side significantly.  Walking is difficult, but not impossible. You kind of have to plan your walking with the movement of the boat.  Stairs are daunting, but again, not impossible.  They have rails on the beds so you don’t fall out of bed.  Since I’m on the bottom bunk and I get out of bed often in the night to go to the bathroom, I took the rail off my bed.  So far, I have not rolled out of bed although at first, it was shocking that I didn’t.  I got a cold while were in Ushuaia so I feel horrible.  I haven’t showered since before we left Ushuaia.  A warm shower sounds amazing as the warm water and steam will help my stuffed-up nose and my hair was in need of shampoo.  So, I decided to risk it.

There was a large grab bar in the shower, so my plan was to just hold on to that.  There was a small opening to the shower stall with a shower curtain to close it off.  Like most things on a ship, you had to step over a threshold to get into the shower.  I got the temperature just right and stepped in.  The shower curtain is immediately all over me as the ship rocks to the side.  Yuck.  Then the ship rocks the other direction and I hold on to the handle.  All right, I got this.  Wait…. How do I get the shampoo out of the bottle and into my hair without letting go of the handle?  This is a two-hand job.  I did not plan far enough ahead.  I let go and get the shampoo bottle in my hand, but then almost get flung out the tiny opening to the shower.  I manage to grab the edge of the opening just before I became a fish out of water flopping on the bathroom floor.  I’m still covered in shower curtain.  Ok, time for a quick change of plan.  Now the plan is to stand in the back corner of the shower and bounce back and forth between the metal walls, just barely missing the opening.  This means you get to hit the shower knobs every once in a while, but that seems a small price to pay considering the terror of the shower opening.  I managed to get some shampoo in my hair, but I probably only got 60% of my hair clean.  That seems clean enough.  I got soap on my upper body and figured that the legs and feet got clean by way of gravity.  Of course, the basin at the bottom the shower didn’t drain fast enough so there is a small lake of water splashing around.  I couldn’t quite handle the bin they had put up high to hold your toiletries, so all my toiletries are all splashing around at my feet.  Scooping up the right one at the right time was a game in its own right.  When I was done with each one, I’d throw them out the shower opening and hear them rolling around out there.  And, of course, at several points in the shower, the water temperature would change drastically and suddenly.  The shower stall is so small there is no escape.  My right shoulder and left arm are now scorched and bleeding.  Ok, it didn’t burn enough to bleed or even blister, but it feels like it burned that bad.  At some point in the middle of the shower, there was no giving up.  I was going to win this battle even if winning meant partially clean.  I came out with a couple of battle wounds, but I did win.