At sea - Day 2

Yesterday were walked from the hotel to where our transport was waiting. We got on last so back of the bus. We are steerage passengers after all. At the Ocean Adventurer, our ship, we first went through a covered area where passports were checked then to a border police stand before we boarded.

We were directed to our cabin which is on the lowest deck and at the bow end. Before we had time to unpack we were called to the lounge, 2 floors above for a briefing by Amalia Goodall, the expedition leader, from Ushuaia. No sooner had we got back down to our cabin than the alarm sounded for emergency lifeboat drill which was a bit chaotic - the life jackets were complicated! Luckily we had normal ones we wore every day for our zodiacs.

By then we were just leaving the port so we went up several levels to watch. The pilot was on board and the pilot boat followed till we were far enough out for that vessel to draw alongside and for the pilot to crossover.

Then it was straight to dinner. What a melee. A buffet and a squashed dining room of lots of little tables. We sat on a big table which was quite convivial as it turned out wine was included.

This morning when we went to breakfast we were told that we were 8 hours behind schedule as there had been a medical emergency and the doctor and captain had decided a person had to be returned to Reykjavik. So we were there about 2.30 am and consequently were still sailing round Iceland in the morning.

After breakfast we had a talk on photography which was mostly about composition with lovely photos of animals and landscapes. After that we went outside seeing a few Orca in the distance. Earlier some people had seen a blue whale. Jean the expedition bird woman was ecstatic about all the birds seen. Next was a lecture from Ian the historian with a young Greenlander woman Lana helping with his pronunciation. Greenland’s population is 54,000 of which
89% is Inuit.

I tried to get help from a crew Oz mansplainer about getting onto the quarkatsea free intranet site but he was useless (“I don’t know Apple”) but the Japanese reception woman got me on. We also get free but slow WhatsApp for messages only, no photos, otherwise it is $200 for 10 days internet. (People who had it said it was so slow it wasn’t worth it).

It started to get choppy and at the mandatory briefing about tomorrow - how to behave on shore and how to get safely on and off Zodiacs - several people were puking into the sick bags. The captain’s cocktail party was postponed.

We wandered outside and I took a Kwell to be on the safe side then it was time for the recap and intro to the expedition staff. There were at least a dozen, plus “hotel” staff and 75 crew. The mist had come in and the sea seemed a bit quieter. Few people turned up for dinner.

We got a lovely sunset and pictures of fulmars following the boat so that’s my blip.


So far this has gone to today’s date and not when the photo was taken so I’ll try to fix that.