Today was a sea day, and I woke up glad to see that the sea wasn’t quite as bad as I was expecting it to be. I was even able to get breakfast! Given that we were at sea, with little to do but rock back and forth, there was a full day of lectures to take our mind off of things. Right after breakfast the seasickness pills set in, and it was time for a nap. I missed the first lecture, but got up for the second one. It was another lecture about southern expeditions of the past, and we learned about the race between Amundsen and Scott to get to the South Pole.
I find myself reflecting a lot on sea days, and since there’s not a lot of pictures to take I’ll give you some from other days
One explorer, Scott, was a naval officer who stocked his ship with horses and plenty of gear, but would end up perishing on the trip due to what appears, in hindsight, to be poor planning (the horses, for example, were useless in the snow and this was well documented at the time). Amundsen, on the other hand, planned to excess. He set up supply depots at every degree of latitude along the trip, and beat Scott to the pole by a full 34 days, even though he started a month after and landed on the continent 10 days after Scott’s expedition. In the end, they would both make it to the pole, but only Amundsen would make it back alive. The story was very interesting, I would encourage more research here! I didn’t take any pictures today, but the lectures were good all day. This lecture was followed by others, one about one of the guide’s times in South Georgia (Adam), and some video from the trip. We rounded out the day with a team quiz, and while we didn’t come first our team (with Keith, Mo, and a few others) came in a respectable fifth or sixth. We’d like to blame Jen for thinking crab-eater seals actually eat crab (they don’t, they eat mostly krill), but in all we missed about six questions so that was that. We called ourselves “Scott’s Ponies”, and had a good time anyway!
A historic chess set from Base Esperanza
Each of the meals seemed to come in quick succession, and without outings to break up the day I really didn’t feel very hungry during that time (could have also been that once again the seasickness was affecting me). By the time the quiz was over, it was bed time for me! Another day down… only a few more hours and we’d be back in calmer waters and sailing back into Beagle Channel, signaling our arrival back into Tierra Del Fuego.
Back near the ice melange, a few penguins out on the ice
