Day 10 At Sea - Life's Bounty

Monday 16 January 2023

The storm has intensified overnight with swells now over 10m high but apparently it is moving through so we are hopeful for improvement. The captain has had to change to a more easterly course to find a better position to the waves but it was an interesting night! My bed moved a metre sideways to be pushed up next to Anne’s and we have sore muscles just from trying to stop ourselves sliding off the beds. Anything that wasn’t well secured has repositioned itself overnight. We are woken by an announcement from the captain that all the outside decks are closed – no one is to go outside.

We head up to breakfast to discovered that all the crockery and cutlery has slid off the tables and is now packed in trays on the ground. Initially the staff tell us to sit down and they will bring us food and drink. Eventually the buffet opens with some limited success – there are some interesting dances. The poor waiters are feeling tired and many of them seasick, and keep having to clean up new spills. One woman falls when a wave hits because she has things in both hands and no ability to hold on and tumbles down the carpet. Another rogue wave hits and all the crockery slides off the tables again (full this time except what we are able to grab on the way past. Another woman sitting one table away from us is tipped over in her chair and then slides right across the dining room. Thankfully the doctor is not far away.

We are asked to stay seated and spend our time watching the waves breaking against the 4th floor windows, looming on the horizon and then as we go down in the troughs. Gradually announcements are made that birding out on the back deck is obviously cancelled, then that it is too dangerous to hold the seminars, so we are asked to return to our cabins carefully until it is safe for us to resume the day’s lecture programme.

Lunch is served in the restaurant but there are more crockery breakages and spills. The poor waiters valiantly manage to get us served but are much relieved when we are no longer their responsibility.

We head back to our rooms and spend the afternoon reading and snoozing. The sea swells and wind are starting to go down and by late afternoon we are invited to join the expedition team for social interaction and an update. The Aft Lounge that we meet in is looking worse for wear with the lectern knocked over, chairs that have all slid to one side and big fans drying spills. The first iceberg had been spotted at 4.10pm. We expect to cross into Antarctic waters in the early hours of tomorrow morning. Dinner is served shortly afterwards, still a bit unsteady but much improved.

After dinner we head down to the Lecture Theatre for a documentary “The Last Place on Earth” that is one of 7 episodes of a dramatisation of Roland Huntford’s book about the epic race to the South Pole between rival explorers Scott and Amundsen.