It’s A Grind And I’m Feeling It | East Antarctica

Wednesday to Friday, 24 January – 9 February 2024
Day 63-79 of 110ish

I’m definitely finding this part of the journey to be the most tiring.

Morale Is Waning

The weather and sea have improved significantly! We’ve had a few good storms come through with a max wind speed of 70 knots but mostly sitting around 40-50knots. That’s pretty breezy!

Thank God that’s passed!

Plus a good nights sleep and life is good again. I’m definitely finding this part of the journey to be the most tiring. Perhaps its the non-stop work…though it hardly feels that much like work.

Perhaps it’s the insomnia and hot flashes flaring up again. Whatever it is, I’m dragging and finding it hard to get my pre-steam mojo back. 

Never mind, the experience goes on. 

Times Are Changing

Another part of the experience is that we are getting about 4-5 hours of darkness now. It is occurring from around 5:30am-10:30am ships time. It’s incredible how fast the darkness is extending itself as we approach the first day of autumn on 1 March.

As the darkness increases, so does my excitement about seeing the aurora. I’m hoping to see the aurora but, generally speaking, the sky is overcast here at the South Pole.

***Just a wee update – turns out it’s dark because of the cloud cover. We had a morning with no clouds and though the sun sinks on the horizon, there is still a faint hint of paleness to the horizon for an hour or so before the dawning of the new day begins. Oh and sunrise/sunset lasts for hours!!! I love that! ***

Box 1

Right now we are fishing Box 1. The fishing is finally going pretty well and after a week of not seeing any whales, the streak broke.

Tom got pictures of a sperm whale that was stealing fish off the line. Even sperm whales enjoy the sushi train! And we keep seeing them bumming around the boat again. It’s absolutely wonderful! Makes the fisherman grumble and me grin.

And I’ve grilled Shaun.

Box 1, scenically speaking, is fairly boring. There are some icebergs here and there but nothing like we were promised.

He’s saying Box 2 is close to the land. Ooooo can’t wait for that!

The Truth Comes Out

Also, an update on the Japanese boats. The word on the street is that they are only counting whales this year. They are not taking any so it really is purely research…though disappointingly, one has migrated to the high krill zone…either to count and tag whales there or something with the krill.

Fingers crossed they don’t have their eyes on that now. The krill take is becoming a massive ecological disaster. All for people to have another source of omega-3 fatty acids which they can get from flax and chia seeds. No animals need die and we don’t need to collapse another ecosystem to get your precious omega-3’s!