Hi Everyone
So how do our day go? We are currently passing through the Bransfield Strait. The Bransfield Strait is between the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands. The boat is rocking and rolling. We were told to put all our computers, cameras and lenses on the floor so that nothing breaks overnight. This is not the dreaded Drake, but we were also told to walk carefully and hold the handrails. I just took some sea sickness pills just in case.
So how did the day start? Did not sleep well last night. Am yearning for my good old bed at home. Got up around 5 AM, dressed and went down for coffee. The original plan was for us to do a land excursion at Orne Harbor and walk up a mountain to a viewing platform. The weather was wet and very foggy. The land excursion was cancelled since we would have seen almost nothing form the viewing platform. We were first given a lecture on the history of Antartica. Very interesting and informative. After that we had a lightroom session and then lunch.
At 2 PM all the people on the port side or even cabin numbers, such as mine, were told to dress warm and go down to board the zodiacs for iceberg cruising around Bancroft Bay. So beautiful. We saw some whales and I got some dead on pictures of their tails Monica, the boat captain, was driving our zodiac. She is so nice and informative. She has been doing this for over twenty years and is German in origin. She took us around some beautiful icebergs. We saw icebergs that looked like faces and even one mushroom iceberg. I took almost one thousand pictures of these beautiful sculptures of nature. I then asked Monica the dreaded question. Has she gotten any weather forecast on the Drake since we are due to start the crossing tomorrow night. She looked at me and put her thumb down. She said it will be bad as of this moment. I don’t know how I will be able to endure the Drake again. Need to get fully medicated. A woman sitting next to me at dinner told me that she took a shower the first morning and was thrown out of the shower. She grabbed onto the shower curtain and everything came tumbling down. She received some bruises and two black eyes.
After the iceberg cruise I took a long hot bath, downloaded my pictures and cleaned all met gear. A daily chore that needs to be maintained during a photo workshop.
After dinner we had a long picture critique. After the critique, we were warned again to make sure everything in our room is secure and to walk around with nothing in our hands and try to anticipate the situation.
Hope I sleep some tonight. The boat is rocking more as I finish.
We are heading to Deception Island. More on that tomorrow.
Love
Larry