Life On A Fishing Vessel | Ross Sea, Antarctica

Friday to Wednesday, 8 December 2023 – 10 January 2024
Day 16-49 of 110ish

Oooo these early days are rough on the budding galley hand. 0130 wake up. It’s going to take me a couple painful days to adjust to my new shift hours, but I’ll get there. 

In the meantime, I’m grateful for the endless daylight in this frozen world. It makes the early morning hours tolerable plus I do get to see what amounts for a sunrise, which is stunning. The colours here are deep pastels and blow your mind daily!

The Unfishable

These first couple days are annoying and difficult. The ice pack is too thick for the boat to fish. The moon pool allows are the fisherman to pull up the line easily while sitting in the ice but the floats can get lost under large pads of ice. And though this boat is built to push some ice around, it’s not an ice breaker. So patience is in play as we wait for the ice pack to break up in the summer ‘heat’.

Tom and I are the only ones (outside of the guys on the bridge) having to work. The deckies are all lounging around and making a ‘Den of Iniquity’ out of the lounge area. It’s a bit painful having to feed them heaps of food and get up at the crack of dawn when they are just watching movies, scratching themselves, and making messes that I have to clean up…though I flat refuse to touch the ‘Den of Iniquity’. It’s actually starting to smell in there. Yuck!

Thankfully, these days of the boat mooching around the ice waiting for it to break up enough so we could fish, didn’t last long. Soon we were fishing and the natural order of things set in. This is better! 

The Rhythm Of The AA

My body has succumb to my new hours and I found my rhythm. I am now happily doing brekkie all on my own. I found out the boys really like shakshuka and the Russian/Ukrainian/Israeli onboard, Andrei, is super thrilled with it too. That feels really nice!

My rhythm also includes a nice workout after the meal service is over and before I clean everything. This ‘me time’ not only keeps me sane and fit but it’s a great way to stay awake. Then, in the evening, I wind down with a sauna and a book or editing my millions of photographs. The book is optional…depends on whether my eyeballs will stay open. 

Blessings Abound

It’s such a lovely, peaceful boat. I’m so grateful that this is the boat that we ended up getting to explore the Antarctic waters on. We lucked it!

Not only are we getting paid, it’s a three year old boat, a nice crew, and we get the rare opportunity to see two different areas of Antarctica – Ross Sea (ice pack and penguins/seals) and East Antarctica (whales and icebergs and land in the distance).

A quadruple blessing! 

The Grind

So Groundhog Day it is. Everyday is quite the same.

At first there were heaps of penguins and seals coming around to investigate the boat and amuse the crew. After a few weeks though, they’ve mostly disappeared except for the birds.

The Adélie penguins seem to come and go. I will forever love to watch these little dudes and it will never get old seeing these little punks.

While I know you shouldn’t anthropomorphize the animals, it’s hard not to, so I will bravely continue doing it. They almost seem to see the boat and say “Hey, let’s check this thing out”. So they almost trip over each other in a race to be the first to get to this big, giant foreign object. Then the brakes go on. Eeeeek! Not too close. But I’ll sit here and look you up and down with my flippers out and my neck craned to the side so you can’t tell I’m looking at you. Though I can.

The intense curiosity. They way they interact with each other. Their flippers out and waddling or scooting around on their bellies. Our favourite saying from an early explore is ‘their pig-headed disregard for their own safety’. They are endlessly entertaining!

The Cast of Characters

Speaking of entertaining, we certainly have some characters on board. Here’s a couple of them-

Liam aka Nemo – mid-twenties Australian deckhand with a thick accent and lovely temperament. Always happy and complimentary and absolutely says whatever is on his mind. Everything is always ‘All Good’! There is no filter and it’s quite endearing. He’s got a whole host of tattoos including ‘Sink’ and ‘Swim’ tattooed on each eyelid. His nickname comes from the clownfish tattooed in his right armpit which he says was more painful than his eyelids. He’s got a thing for pain. 

Dave – a legend. Calm, cool, collected. The most placid and amicable factory manager you will possibly meet. He’s a Māori New Zealander from Northland. Quick with a smile, kind, and loves to clop around in his flip flops like a geisha. It’s hard not to absolutely love Dave. 

Shaun – the second second mate. Troublemaker. Loud and lovely. Prankster. Loves to show me pictures and teach me about what’s happening. He always has time for my silly questions which I’m grateful for. He’s a Kiwi boy in his mid-forties like Tom and I. He and Tom commiserate over difficult wives of which it sounds like they married similar. Dislikes spicy, likes smokey and loves his food. He’s quite the character and great to have around!

Fran – first mate Franie. A calm, loving, gentle South African soul. He’s an absolute joy to be around. We often share laughs and enjoy some lovely conversations before he knocks off to bed. He lives at the Whangarei Heads with his Filipino wife, Umparo, and wants to buy a yacht to live on. Me thinks and hopes we’ll be seeing more of this gentle giant of a man somewhere along life’s path. 

Tangi – the skipper. A large and in charge man with quite the sense of humour, a big appetite, and everyone is called ‘friend’. One day he asked randomly how long it takes for a giraffe to throw up. The answer is nearly a whole minute!!!! He gets along with Tom like a house on fire. He leads in a very admirable way and it shows in his crew and the quiet, easy temperament on board. 

Junior – young Samoan Kiwi from Bluff, NZ. Long dreads bunched up in a Sideshow Bob style man bun really says it all. He’s loud and lovely. Into day trading crypto and Māori politics. He’s a happy chappy and from day one has been absolutely lovely to me. 

Dodi – the friendliest Indonesian you’ll ever meet. Super quick with a gigantic smile. Happy…always! He was one of the first people to introduce himself and make me feel so very welcome when I joined the boat. And he still does that to this day. I hope we can visit him in Sulawesi one day.

Ipan – friendly and a little shy but always happy Indonesian deckie. Apparently he’s a good hair dresser and I’m about to find out in a couple days time! 

Dylan – NZ guy in his thirties and Damo’s older brother. A deckie and a little bit hopeless. Lovely but maybe fried his brain with some hard core drugs a couple too many times. He’s a very nice, thoughtful person and loves to ask for the most random of things. 

Damian aka Damo – late twenties NZ deckie. Stoic, quiet, shy and when you get him talking he’ll tell you honestly everything. He’s a thinker and he wants more from his life than the fishing gig. A vegetarian who wants to teach yoga, he’s very different to the rest. 

Andrei – A beautiful soul. He’s the 2nd engineer hailing from mother Russia, Ukraine and Israel. He’s got some stories! He’s very excited to be on this trip for the same reasons that Tom and I are. It’s lovely to share the awe that we have for the scenery with someone!

Javed – A mountain for a man. He’s the 3rd engineer and lives in Arthurs Pass past Otira in New Zealand. He’s creative, doesn’t sleep much, has the sixth sense and always love to come into the galley for a bit of a yarn.

The Indos – A quiet, peaceful, gentle bunch. Love their rice and noodles and put up with all the rest of us beautifully. They are hard working and never complain out loud. It’s so wonderful to get to know them on this trip and makes me look forward to our time in Indonesia when it comes.

Boredom and Baking

All in all, we are doing well and are settled into our routine. However, Tom is getting bored with cooking all the time. I don’t blame him.

He has the challenge of thinking up two meals a day with two meat dishes, a fish and side dishes to delight the crew with. He’s doing a great job though and the boys are enjoying his meals. 

I’ve been enjoying baking! 

I started by making Tom and Nate, the birthday buddies, a layered chocolate cake. That disappeared quickly and was the buzz of the boat. So for New Years, I made a carrot cake. Well!!! I’m still getting requests for more.

They are loving the homemade desserts and I’m really enjoying making them. Win, win! 

For OJ’s birthday on 6 January, I made a triple layer banana cake that seemed to go over pretty well too. I’ve now been asked for red velvet, a cake I’ve never made before. Fun! 

And I even tested my luck and made marshmallow so I can do rice krispy treats. Ha ha! That didn’t go quite as swimmingly.

The other day I pondered why I’ve been enjoying baking so much. I think there are quite a few reasons…

1. I’m getting paid for it. Excellent!
2. The ingredients are plentiful and it doesn’t matter if I mess it up.
3. It brings me back to my childhood baking with Grandma Streeb and my mom, but especially Grandma Streeb. Gma had a three bedroom home with two kitchens! That’s how much she loved baking. Grandpa converted a small room in the basement into a kitchen so she could bake her little heart out…and she did! The love of it is in my blood!
4. Somehow the pace of my normal life these days has made finding the time and energy to bake impossible. I can’t remember the last time I made a cake. And I’ve only made cookie dough and brownies in the last couple years and maybe only a handful of times. 

All that adds up to…this is fun! And the boys seem to enjoy it,  which is like the icing on the cake 🙂

Otherwise, the grind continues and every day is basically the same.