THURSDAY – A SWELL TIME IN THE DRAKE PASSAGE

We went to bed last night in calm conditions as we headed for the open ocean and, at some time during the night became aware of a very relaxing rocking motion. It is now late afternoon of day one of the two day crossing of Drakes Passage and fortunately, we are perfectly comfortable with the motion of the ship. It obviously has very effective stabilisers in that the motion is a gentle pitching motion with very little roll. Our cabin is towards the rear of the ship so we don't get much of the movement more pronounced up towards the bow. We are told that, as far as Drake Passage conditions are concerned, the conditions are quite good.

Unfortunately not everybody is finding the experience as pleasant as we are.

The preparation process has continued. We have been fitted out with our boots and parka and received mandatory briefings on life jacket use, the procedure for getting into and out of zodiacs, what we can and can't when do when interacting with wildlife, whether in the zodiacs or on shore.

We have also had presentations on the whales of the southern ocean and the history of Antarctic exploration. Shortly, there is to be “an introduction to ice”.

There are a lot of presenters on the ship so the presentations will obviously continue until Saturday when the expeditions start.