A big part of this adventure was always going to be about the sea. About the voyage, the cruising conditions, the ship, shipboard routine and navigation.

You see, I have spent quite a lot of my life, “messing about in boats”. They are an integral part of some of my favourite memories.

It was inevitable that I should find a way to bring this part of me to my Antarctic adventure. So, I decided to keep a chart of my voyage.

I admit that I was a little self-conscious turning up with my giant marine charts. However, I shouldn’t have worried. There were others with the same idea (although not many, I admit)

In any case, I like to think that the charts made our cabin homely?

When it came to taking readings, I was motivated and diligent.

I would venture outside with the GPS, lingering to get a signal.

After a week or so, when we hit some weather, and I didn’t go outside, I had to make an alternative plan. From this time, it became a regular routine for me to ask one of the officers on the bridge if I could have a look at the log to get the positions at various times on the previous days(s).

The chart room became quite familiar to me. Even with all of the technology, a ship always has charts; I liked to gaze at theirs, which were also marked up with our voyage. Of course, I couldn’t understand any of the labels, as everything was in Russian. It was somehow incongruous to see the equivalent chart to mine, but totally unintelligible.

I would record the latitude and longitude on my chart which was hanging on the wall, sitting cross-legged or kneeling on the bed to get to it. Crossing the open sea, it was hard to get a notion of our journey. But, I could watch our progress on my chart.

The landscape changed, in a way which was similar to that experienced by a climber scaling a mountain. The further south we went the more we would encounter the thinning landscape and stunted and sparse vegetation of high altitudes.

The lichens and mosses were examples of life struggling, adapting and then thriving in the most unlikely places, and appearing quite suddenly and unexpectedly before you.

The Rata forests were quite special – magical.

We cruised through the ‘roaring forties’, that name given to the band of latitudes which are notorious for their strong winds.

I’d heard this term before. But I hadn’t heard of the ‘furious fifties’.

These were the latitudes of the subantarctic islands, where the fury of the weather was evident in the many shipwreck stories. On our walk around Enderby Island, we could picture the drama of the wreck of the “Derry Castle”, as we stood on the headland where the disaster played out. There were many examples of similar catastrophes. They were so frequent, that the New Zealand government of the time decided to leave depots of food and supplies for the survivors of shipwrecks, marking their presence through “finger posts” to direct the people to their position.

And yet, there could be moments when the weather was just perfect.

With the albatrosses swooping and gliding behind the ship.

I’d definitely never come across the term, ‘screaming sixties’, let alone encountered them. In fact, it was indeed in the ‘screaming sixties’ that we encountered our first big sea….

Actually, this sea wasn’t that bad, so we were told. A 3.5 to 4 metre swell with 35 to 40 knot winds. But it was enough to make it more comfortable to chill in our cabins, venturing out for meals, but skipping the lectures.

And always the plea over the loudspeaker. “one hand for the ship, and one hand for yourself”.

It was in these latitudes where we crossed the Antarctic Circle!

There were no more land sightings. We started to encounter the ice.

And not just on the ship.

So many different forms that we even had a lecture on it…

And then the icebergs!

Finally we reached the ‘silent seventies’. The grandeur and the beauty, masking the latent power in the combination of weather and continent, which could (and had) caused such havoc and taken lives.

 

As I sit here now, and time has passed since I was on my adventure, the memories which stir me are those of the ship and the journey itself. I’ve always believed more in the “journey” rather than the “destination”. And it seems that this is also ringing true for my Antarctic adventure.

But now that it is in the past, and I have come to the end of my blog, I have cause to go back to the beginning, and read some of my opening posts. At that time, it was all ahead of me.

Has it lived up to my expectations?

Oh, yes. Exceeded them.

Have I been changed?

I think so.

Will I have another adventure like it?

Probably not with the same significance.  My Antarctic Adventure was not just a trip to a far-flung place, where few people go. It was a salve to my soul. It has helped me to wrench myself from my preoccupation with the past,  and caused me to cast a sidelong glance to the future.