Plans Change Overnight, January 11, 2013

Originally our intention was to leave the area of Elephant Island and head to the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula where we would make landings at Hope Bay and Penguin Island.  However, according to Ian Dalziel (I should note that he is originally Scottish and his name is pronounced Di-Al), Ted Cheeseman came to his cabin at 1am and informed him that the ice had packed into Antarctic Sound and rendered it too thick for navigation.

So…we have turned around and are headed toward potential landing sites on King George Island.  In addition, the weather has turned for the worse (significantly).  It is cold, rainy to snowy, and the winds have picked up.

Helen Natrass in her professional capacity

I will digress to discussing some of the passengers…A couple of nights ago I spent some time in the bar with one of the more interesting passengers: Helen Natrass. She is a rotund woman, probably in her mid-50s, from London, England.  Her background is in geologic engineering.  Helen is an accomplished musician (many passengers are humming her “Krill Song”) and extremely funny.  She was holding court with Stefanie Mzorek, a relatively young woman from Canada, who does exploration geology.  They were sharing a bottle of wine and eating some Ashmore cheese that Helen had brought aboard.  She was telling stories and had us cracking up describing an Aqua-aerobics class that she was attending at a gym, how all the matronly women were huffing and puffing in the water while the “stick figure” instructor was on the side of the pool exhorting them to more effort.  This caused their “bosoms to bounce up and down like balloons." From my standpoint her stories were rendered even funnier by her English accent.

Of course, there are many geologists on board but there are also non-geologists either accompanying their spouses or significant others or on the trip because of interest in Antarctica and geology.  As an example, one of the other passengers is Rob Duisberg.  Rob is from Seattle and is the Director of the West Seattle Community Orchestra.  He is the spouse of Trileigh Tucker, an academic geologist at Seattle University.

The ship's Library.

As I was writing this I was sitting in the Library with several others working on their blogs (Susan Eaton), reading (Cris Morgante and a couple of others), or knitting (Ann Laubach).

We finally made a landing on King George Island near the Brazilian base on King George Island. King George Island is one of the South Shetland Islands and is off the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula and his the site of several nation's bases. These include the Brazilians, the Chinese, the Peruvians, and others.

Some of the expedition
ashore near the Brazilian base.

Rudolph Trouw, one of the geologic leaders, made contact with the base (he’s Dutch but has lived in Brazil for more than 20 years) and we have received permission to land there.  Their base apparently burned down last year and they are rebuilding it while living in a ship in Admiralty Bay.

There is not much to recommend seeing here on King George and so, again, I elected to stay on the ship and stay warm.  I used the “gym” and took the opportunity to use the hot tub.  It was pleasant to be sitting in the warm water while a light rain fell and the snow and ice surrounded us on all sides.

How often do you get to sit in
a hot tub in Antarctica?

We just received a briefing over the intercom from Ted Cheeseman about how the weather has affected us.  We are now at somewhat of a loss and are pondering our options.  A forecasted storm has hit much earlier than predicted and we are now dealing with rough seas and winds to 30 to 35 knots.  However, the eye of the storm is expected to pass over us later this evening and based on the information available a decision has been made.  We will be heading back to where we intended earlier…the east side of the Peninsula for some possible landings tomorrow.

Later I spent much of the evening in the “lounge.” The younger crowd was there also.  They ended up shutting down the place much after I left.

Typical "lounge" scene.
Natalie, a Ph.D. student at Utah,
and John, a community college
geology instructor from Georgia.
That's Dr. Lynne
in the background.