Sid – Jan 24 2018
Just as we have become completely at home in our Antarctic surroundings, the everchanging beauty of the ice and ever-present seals, penguins and other birds we have turned north and we can feel our magical journey beginning to come to an end. In one respect this may be good as we will have a chance to reset our set of the aesthetic before becoming too jaded by the constant beauty. Today is our first totally gray and dreary day with the wind on the nose and a wind chill of -6⁰ C. Still the seas are calm in the narrow channel which we are traversing, and the motion of boat is very slight.
The calm seas throughout the trip have probably been the biggest surprise for me. On only a few occasions has our sleep been disturbed by the gentle rocking motion caused when a nearby glacier calves and sends huge chunks of ice into the harbor.
This morning we departed Port Lockroy, the first British base in the Antarctic and home of the southernmost post office in the world. The base has ceased to function for scientific research and is now operated as a museum of earlier time by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust. Because of the opportunity to mail postcards that the post office provides, nearly one third of the 46,000 annual visitors to the Antarctic stop here.
When we arrived two days ago, there were two other charter yachts in the large harbor. They departed shortly after our arrival and were replaced by a large 250-passenger cruise ship. Quickly thereafter the rocks of the penguin colony were overrun by a swarm of matching yellow jackets and a large number of adventuresome folks appeared on stand-up paddle boards. Fortunately, the ship’s stay was brief and we soon had the anchorage to ourselves again. In the evening, we went out in the dinghy to forage for the perfect bits of crystal clear ice for our evening drinks. We noticed a small yacht, which appeared to be single-handed, approaching and went over to greet him. It turned out to be a 35 ft. steel gaff-rigged sloop . After helping to moor the boat by taking lines ashore, we invited the owner over to OCEAN TRAMP for drinks and dinner. He turned out to be quite a character. A petroleum geologist by training, he has been sailing continuously, largely in high latitudes, since building the boat in 1997. We were the first people that he had seen since leaving Opua, NZ, over sixty days before. He is enroute to Ireland, but since he had to round Cape Horn and was “in the neighborhood”, he decided to stop at Port Lockroy where he had overwintered in 1999. From here, he intends to stop in Stanley, in the Falklands, to provision and from there to sail directly to Ireland!
Last night, we had a delicious pad-Thai dinner aboard, with the entire, three-woman, staff of the Port Lockroy Station and our neighbor. It was a bit crowded with thirteen around the saloon table. The lively conversation more than made up for the crowding.
– Sid
**editors note, by the time Sid finished writing, the seas had picked up a bit and he regretted his earlier comment on calm seas!
