Well, not really the Drake Passage. We are in the Bransfield Strait – and holy mother of God! One of the books Ed is reading on Shackleton and Soott called the Bransfield Strait a “treacherous stretch of water between the Palmer Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands.” Ummmm, yeah, we’ll have to agree with that.
The Captain did warn us of the low pressure system and the 2 days of bad weather – so ok – we think we’re prepared. Knowing him, when he says “rough” he means rough. I start the Dramamine right away, we head to the lounge for a pre-dinner drink, then to dinner. It’s jam packed because the upstairs dining room is closed due to weather. We have to share a table, which actually was fine – good company with a couple from South Africa and 2 couples from California. So – no problem there – the problem are the seas! We are hitting swells and rolling starboard and port – and our chairs are sliding across the dining room floor. Bumper chairs! Every time a trough comes, we all hold on for dear life. But – hey – ok – we signed on for this. We’ll make it work.
Dinner goes fine – none of us manage to spill or lose anything. Although the service was chaos – orders wrong and mixed up – and the poor waiter kept apologizing telling us they were falling in the kitchen! Ay yi yi!
We head to the lounge to self-medicate for the long night. There – on high back stools – it’s a little more interesting. I grab for the bar – while the taller guys plant a foot on the floor. We end up gabbing with some of the naturalists and again – managing to keep all our liquid in our glasses. The tell us A) that the Drake passage was average, no big deal, just sort of normal (OMG!) and B) the reason we are feeling the seas so much tonight is that we can’t use our stabilizers. The ice is a potential danger and could harm or shear off the ship stabilizers, so they have been retracted. Oh boy!
Around midnight we all split up and head our separate ways – me into the wall (oops, missed that swell!), and then virtually attached to the banister all the way up to the 6th floor (stairways only, the elevators are closed again). And no, it was not from the beverages. In the room, we move the drinking glasses to the floor and make sure all the little things are secure (we think). Then we climb into bed and try to let the motion rock us to sleep.
It’s really bad – the worst we’ve ever seen. We’re tossing and turning in bed (without even trying! It’s the ship doing the work!) thinking we made a huge error in not tipping Ashley our bartender tonight because he might not be in the same lifeboat! Our little emergency pile of clothes, backpack and pills doesn’t seem so over the top at the moment.
We finally fall asleep until about 2AM when we hit a swell that sends the bed about 2 feet away from the wall. The only thing stopping it was the dresser on the other side of the room. The coffee cups on the dresser are shaking and sliding, things are falling, sliding, flying about the cabin. Oh my! We assess the damage, not too bad, nothing broken. So we try to go back to sleep. Well, we managed to fitfully sleep the next 2 or 3 hours, waking up constantly with the motion of the ship and the crashing of various objects. Some things that ended in the bed with Ed: 1 computer mouse, 1 TV remote control, 1 AA battery. By 5AM Ed is up and just laying in the bed trying to figure out where all the noises are coming from – I’m up sucking down Dramamine and hoping that the dresser stays put. By 6AM, Ed’s downstairs trying to get coffee or something – and I’m laying in the bed wishing it would stop when the BIG swell hits. I have absolutely no idea how far we rolled or what the list angle was but what I do know is that everything came off the dresser and flew across the room. I was safe, because the bed has no where else to go. But, heck now I have to get up and try to stay in an upright position to put everything away. That was a chore, I’m telling you!
Ed comes back after being completely unsuccessful in his hunt for coffee. The main lounge normally has coffee, but Suneil had set the whole coffee table up 3 times and had it crash down around his feet. He set it up a 4th time, just as Ed walked in – and just as the BIG swell hit. Everything went crashing down again. Poor guy – not a happy camper. Ed returned and made an espresso in the room. Then ventured out again at 7AM to see about breakfast. They aren’t serving anything in the dining room – they can’t – it’s just not safe. They do have pastries – so Ed brings 2 up to the room for something on our stomachs.
The captain comes on and gives us a recap of the night. 12 meter seas (around 40 feet), “60 knot winds (high tropical storm strength) lots of icebergs, lots of growlers (small icebergs) and lots of ice.” Normally sea motion doesn’t concern us too much, but with 2 ships sinking (and a heart stopping rescue on the Clelia II—Youtube that one!) in the last couple of years, we know that we need to be aware.
I’m whipped – from the lack of sleep and the Dramamine – so I just doze for the next couple of hours – on and off – in and out of swells, until miraculously – they stop. Oh thank heaven! That was sheer torture. Now we are in the Antarctic Sound and it’s much calmer and it’s iceberg heaven. Tons of floating masses all around us. Ed fortunately captures it on film, because I’m still too wasted to get up. Finally around 9 I guess, I drag myself up and we go to breakfast where we can now actually have food! Protein, carbs and caffeine! Works miracles!
Now we can enjoy our day….icebergs and the Weddell sea!
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