Day 5 At Sea - Life's Bounty

Wednesday 11 January 2023

As we left the lee of the Auckland Islands we began to notice that we were definitely in the Southern Ocean. The wind and the swell increased and we all started to practice our sea legs in earnest as we ricocheted from wall to wall as we walked down corridors in an ungainly fashion. I provided early entertainment as I tried to walk across the restaurant carrying a cup of tea. It quickly became apparent to all that the safest bet was to quickly locate a seat and then get the much more surefooted waiters to deliver whatever it was that you were trying to get.

Although the day was more leisurely, there was still a good programme of events scheduled, starting of course with the breakfast eating event. We then had a lecture by photographer Michael Snedic on how to take photographs from a moving ship or Zodiac, followed by the opening of the gift store complete with a special guest appearance and book signing by Richard McElrea, author of Polar Castaways: The Ross Sea Party of Sir Ernest Shackleton, 1914-17 and guest lecturer on the expedition. Anne and I both bought a copy of the book Galapagos of the South Pacific – written by the father of our leader Aaron Russ. Aaron has photo credits for several of the pictures so I asked him if he would sign our copies – which of course he was happy to do. A bit later we have another lecture by Matt Jones (a bird watching expert) on an Introduction to Southern Sea Birds.

: Richard signing his book

: Polar Castaways

: Galapagos of the Antarctic

At lunch we sit with Greg and Sharon who are both retired doctors from the Sunshine Coast in Australia who spend summer in NZ. Sharon and I discover a mutual interest in things arty/creative and end up having quite a discussion about what copyright issues we might face if either of us should choose to sell our work.

After lunch there is a further photography workshop and an opportunity to join the birders out on the back deck to watch the southern sea birds. Neither Anne nor I join them. Actually Anne joins the photography group briefly but the sickness she felt at lunch catches up with her and she is sent back to the room. I decide that I would rather sort out my existing photos and continue to rely on ‘Intelligent Auto’ to take them. By this stage it is getting really quite rough outside and we see swells coming past our deck 4 window! The ship is rolling as well and there is a loud banging noise that we can’t for the life of us figure out where it is coming from. Eventually I track it down to the safe deposit box inside one of our cupboards. We haven’t been using it and the door keeps swinging open and banging on the wall; attempts to lock it shut get an error message. I go to reception to get someone to fix it for me and eventually the woman comes down with duct tape – that works well to solve the problem – as the repair guy is asleep. Later on the repair guy has fixed some of the problem but says he will have to get the electrician as there is still an error message. When we come back from dinner the whole safe deposit box has gone! Problem solved!

Mudroom for cleaning gear

We have another Biosecurity Check this afternoon in preparation for landing at Macquarie Island tomorrow. Macquarie Island is an Australian subantarctic island (operated as part of Tasmania) and at sometime in the afternoon we cross into Australian waters. We are told at our evening briefing that we need to go through Immigration tomorrow morning but it won’t be until 9.00am because we have also switched across to Australian time (which is 2 hours behind NZ and they refuse to start work before 7.00am). Thankfully we don’t have to have an Immigration Officer come on board and the ship’s purser takes care of everything for us.

Biosecurity is a big issue for these islands and Antarctica. Samuel talks us through some of the previous studies etc on the impacts of introduced species in these areas and the difference once they have been eradicated. The mud rooms in the ship are well provisioned with a vast array of cleaning equipment from automatic boot brushes and sanitiser through to vacuum cleaners and hose brushes even tweezers. Some people came back from the island yesterday absolutely covered in biddybids and are destined to spend much of today picking them off their gear and clothing so that they will pass the check. I fortunately don’t seem to have attracted anything untoward and just clean my boots.

Late in the afternoon Aaron gives us an Introduction to Macquarie Island and what to expect tomorrow; then we have our daily recap (which isn’t really much of a recap as we haven’t done anything). But Aaron did give us some intriguing information that they had discovered a stowaway on board. It turned out to be a Light Mantled Sooty Albatross that had misjudged its flight path and ended up outside the bridge and not able to take off. There was some amusing footage of Aaron capturing it (carefully holding the beak) and then transferring it to the back of the ship and carefully setting it free over the side. Amusingly it preferred to attach itself to Aaron’s sleeve. Eventually though it did a very inelegant flop into the water, seemed to recover its dignity and then flew off again as nonchalant as you please.

At our evening eating event we sit with Matt and his father Charlie both from Canberra, Australia. Matt is in the Air Force and Charlie is ex-army. Then we retire to our rooms to watch the provided ‘movie’ on pest eradication in the Macquarie Islands before hopping into bed. Although the wind has calmed somewhat, the waves are still rolling.