Saturday 12th March; 13th day at sea
At 3:55 a.m. a tapping noise woke us up.
R: Is that someone at the door?
Me: No, it’s probably someone working on the ship. [With hindsight this doesn’t seem like a sensible answer given the time.]
More tapping noises.
R: I’m going to answer the door.
It turned out to be Betty from the cabin next to ours, who’d been watching seals in the sea next to the ship from her cabin window, and had wondered what was happening elsewhere. What was happening elsewhere was about 300 juvenile seals all within 20-30 metres of the stern of the ship, in what Betty described as a “feeding frenzy”. Having seen this she decided that she wanted someone else to see it as well, and we were nominated, though she later woke one of the expedition staff. All in all it was quite a remarkable sight.
The plans for the day were to land where we’d anchored late the previous night – Right Whale Bay. Unfortunately the wind was too strong, which seemed quite obvious to me, though that didn’t stop a zodiac being put out to look for a landing site, so the landing was scrapped. This landing being scrapped we headed for Elsehul, the day’s second planned landing site. Whilst we were heading there my engine room tour was called. Very interesting, especially the forward propeller shafts, generally used only for manoeuvring and freewheeling the rest of the time. We also met Monica – the name (pet or otherwise, I’m not sure) for the vacuum system that emptied the loos, showers and sinks.
The aft propeller shafts hadn’t seemed to be going very fast when we were down in the engine rooms. The reason for this became clear when we got back to the passenger decks. The second landing had also been scrapped and we were heading for the Falklands. As the weather was expected to be a bit rough, there was a short pause whilst we got things stowed away and (in our case) taped bits of the cabin together.
The winds in the open sea picked up to about force 8 so I spent most of the rest of the day on my bed, except for going to a talk about ice breakers. This was given by the expedition leader, though, rather oddly, the captain turned up as well!
In my diary I put down some stuff about the ship and crew, so I thought I’d repeat this here.
The ship
Built in Finland in 1969 to work in the Baltic, which means it only has to get through a maximum of 2 metres of ice. This means it’s got some stabilisers and doesn’t roll as much. Converted to carry passengers in 2000 or so.
Crew
Norwegian captain; Polish and Czech officers, the rest of the deck and engine room crew were Philippino. The hotel staff were mostly Philippino with the exception of the manager and the woman in charge of the bar who were from New Zealand.
Expedition staff
A real mix here. The leader was a Canadian Scot, his deputy German, and the rest were a mix of British (including two ex-BAS people), a New Zealander, and American and a Swiss-Canadian.
Passengers
Mostly British, but with a couple of Danes, another couple of Norwegians, a few Americans, a pair of Tasmanians going to the Falklands to look at sheep they’d exported as embryos in rabbits (yes, really). There was a fairly high proportion of twitchers and yachting people and how the bridge staff coped with an average of 3 expedition staff, 4 twitchers, 4 yachting people and a couple other people is beyond me.
R: Is that someone at the door?
Me: No, it’s probably someone working on the ship. [With hindsight this doesn’t seem like a sensible answer given the time.]
More tapping noises.
R: I’m going to answer the door.
It turned out to be Betty from the cabin next to ours, who’d been watching seals in the sea next to the ship from her cabin window, and had wondered what was happening elsewhere. What was happening elsewhere was about 300 juvenile seals all within 20-30 metres of the stern of the ship, in what Betty described as a “feeding frenzy”. Having seen this she decided that she wanted someone else to see it as well, and we were nominated, though she later woke one of the expedition staff. All in all it was quite a remarkable sight.
The plans for the day were to land where we’d anchored late the previous night – Right Whale Bay. Unfortunately the wind was too strong, which seemed quite obvious to me, though that didn’t stop a zodiac being put out to look for a landing site, so the landing was scrapped. This landing being scrapped we headed for Elsehul, the day’s second planned landing site. Whilst we were heading there my engine room tour was called. Very interesting, especially the forward propeller shafts, generally used only for manoeuvring and freewheeling the rest of the time. We also met Monica – the name (pet or otherwise, I’m not sure) for the vacuum system that emptied the loos, showers and sinks.
The aft propeller shafts hadn’t seemed to be going very fast when we were down in the engine rooms. The reason for this became clear when we got back to the passenger decks. The second landing had also been scrapped and we were heading for the Falklands. As the weather was expected to be a bit rough, there was a short pause whilst we got things stowed away and (in our case) taped bits of the cabin together.
The winds in the open sea picked up to about force 8 so I spent most of the rest of the day on my bed, except for going to a talk about ice breakers. This was given by the expedition leader, though, rather oddly, the captain turned up as well!
In my diary I put down some stuff about the ship and crew, so I thought I’d repeat this here.
The ship
Built in Finland in 1969 to work in the Baltic, which means it only has to get through a maximum of 2 metres of ice. This means it’s got some stabilisers and doesn’t roll as much. Converted to carry passengers in 2000 or so.
Crew
Norwegian captain; Polish and Czech officers, the rest of the deck and engine room crew were Philippino. The hotel staff were mostly Philippino with the exception of the manager and the woman in charge of the bar who were from New Zealand.
Expedition staff
A real mix here. The leader was a Canadian Scot, his deputy German, and the rest were a mix of British (including two ex-BAS people), a New Zealander, and American and a Swiss-Canadian.
Passengers
Mostly British, but with a couple of Danes, another couple of Norwegians, a few Americans, a pair of Tasmanians going to the Falklands to look at sheep they’d exported as embryos in rabbits (yes, really). There was a fairly high proportion of twitchers and yachting people and how the bridge staff coped with an average of 3 expedition staff, 4 twitchers, 4 yachting people and a couple other people is beyond me.
posted by Iain Burke at 30.1.06
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