January 26 2013
Fabulous sunny afternoon onboard. Checked out the sundeck and the sun lounges and as it was Australia day we did our Aussie thing and donned the bathers to sunbake. Yes we have photos to prove it.
This chart is included for fellow meteorologists – just conditions for sunning yourself.
Visit to Port Lockroy. Museum with lots is f quaint old stuff, from workshop, kitchen, comms room, met room, bedroom and gift shop.
Headed for our camping spot at Damoy Bay. Perfect weather for setting up tent and radio, photo with flag (note the wind is starting to pick up). It took a good 20 minutes to walk through the snow to top of hill (good exercise). The snow was soft around edge of cravass (only a narrow one), (Ewen checked this out accidently) Seem to have lost this photo.
Glad to make it back down in one piece. Checked out the loo with a view.
Probably should have checked out the penguin colony, but opted for the sleeping bag instead, -12 deg c rating so the cold not a problem. Floor just rather hard, and then the wind really picked up and the tent flapping started in earnest! About 3 hours sleep
Sunday 27 January
Really windy breaking camp. Managed to get the tent back in the bag without it blowing away, trip back in zodiac was more adrenalin rush than Space Mountain, glad to be back on the board, not so happy about the water in places it shouldn’t be. Exit my old Ricoh camera. Don’t have the final outcome on Ewen’s new radio but the brown smell is not a good sign.
Headed to the calmer waters of Paradise Bay for a short landing followed by a zodiac cruise. We again challenged ourselves aerobically with climb through the snow to the top of the nearest hill for the mandatory photo on the Antarctic mainland. We took the quick route down – tobogganing most of the way down. Cool Runnings eat your heart out. We were rather reluctant to leave to the take Zodiac back to the boat as our time had been cut short due to the additional time taken to wend our way down the Lumiere Channel avoiding the icebergs.
Tango lessons with the Captain. The less said about this the better, needless to say if there was a test for this I would have failed. Rather interesting though trying to do the steps and stay balanced as they ship moved.
Dinner with girls. Ewen had mobile phone with roll and pitch application. Recorded a total roll of 30 degrees (18 degrees one way+12 degrees the other way), 2 people fell off chairs, soup spilt.