We have arrived at the end of this voyage and are now getting towards the end of our first full sea day on our way back to Ushuaia. We started sailing at about 10am yesterday, and now it is almost 8pm. We have had a very rough Drake so far, with waves up to 12m and winds up to 55knots. Feels stormy.
I spent some time on the Bridge, which is on Deck 6/7, and it was routinely getting splashed with huge spray. Sometimes it even seemed to dive underwater for a few moments before bobbing to the surface again. Sometimes we'd slide down a wave face so steep that we'd have to lean back to avoid falling forward.
This evening I made a short presentation at the daily recap about Otto Nordenskjold, a Swedish expedition leader who led an interesting, fateful but ultimately successful expedition to the eastern Antarctic Peninsula in the early 1900s. It went well, aside from accidentally saying he was Norwegian. Go Neens.
Autumn is definitely here in force. We had real Antarctic conditions over the last few days down south - big winds, spindrift, choppy seas, incredibly atmospheric. At first I was quite jovial. I've often felt like the Antarctic Peninsula is in some ways a . . . well, just not what I expected. Not very 'Antarctic'.
Where are the endless ice sheets of the polar plateau? The Emperor penguins? The water that freezes before it hits the ground when you spit?
Well, she's certainly turned it on recently. Pushing against the breeze, walking through horizontal spindrift beside penguins caked in rime ice and climbing over snow-covered bergs washed up on the beach as the tide rose around my ankles definitely felt Antarctic. Grease ice forming around the ship, grounded bergs obstructing entry into the landing sites and brash ice washed up on shore . . . it's been very cool :) At the same time, after a few days of this I have to acknowledge that it makes for pretty cold, wet work.