Tuesday, 23 January 2024Day 62 of 110ish I’m up, I promise. I’m not functioning well, but I’m vertical. Back To Work We’re back fishing. As expected, this morning was a shock to the system. Gentleman’s hours are over and I’m minus about 4 hours of sleep. I’m eager to get back into my old routine. I quite like my shift days. It works well to get a good workout which conveniently uses up the rest of my data with a yoga video and then a sauna later in the day, a cold shower and a good sleep.  I’ve got to get over this hump though and shock my body back…

Saturday, 13 January 2024Day 52 of 110ish The weather and sea have improved significantly! Thank God! Plus a good nights sleep and life is good again.  Feeling Alarmed Tom and I decided that we would boldly attempt studying the remainder of yachtmasters during gentleman’s hours when we have a nice chunk of time between meals. The last time we attempted this feat was in the middle of Cyclone Gabrielle in Whangarei, NZ last summer. So being the diligent student I am, I found myself diving into the Yachtmaster course. As I was starting into Yachtmasters, I heard the faint sound of an alarm emanating from one of two stories below…

Thursday to Friday, 11-12 January 2024Day 50-51 of 110ish Ugh! Where’s My Ross Sea Lake Gone? The weather has deteriorated and we’re out of the Ross Sea. A double whammy! It’s like living on a hobby horse. The boat is punching into waves and hobby horsing over 3-4m swell as we round around out of the shelter of the Ross Sea. It’s making my transition to gentleman’s hours rougher than I had hoped.  My stomach is uneasy and my sleeping is all out of whack. I’m really not liking this one bit. Thankfully after the second day, the worst day, I had a big sleep and came right.  The Promised…

Wednesday, 10 January 2024Day 49 of 110ish This day arrived about 10 days premature. Today we haul up the last line that’s been set in the Ross Sea and we start our 10-ish day steam to East Antarctica.  Bittersweet Sayonara I’m having mixed feelings about this…which surprises me. I’m so excited to see East Antarctica and all the promises of whales and huge icebergs it holds, but I don’t feel quite ready to leave here yet. It’s become a bit of home. I’ve loved my time in the Ross Sea and I will be sad to leave.  I’ve loved marveling at all the wildlife and watching the chunks of ice.…

Friday to Wednesday, 8 December 2023 – 10 January 2024Day 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…

Saturday, 6 January 2024Day 45 of 110ish Again, today started out like any other day…feeding people, cleaning, exercise, fish and not catch, feed people, clean, sauna, sleep, repeat.  Until around noon when the line started heaving with large toothfish. It was my time…my time to hold a toothfish!  CCTV And Me In the mess lounge, there is a very big screen TV with the boats CCTV on it. You can pick and choose which camera to watch but about 99.9% of the time, the TV is on the moon pool. The money pit! And I had my feet up and was watching what Tom and I call ‘Deadliest Catch”. There…

Friday, 5 January 2024Day 44 of 110ish A couple of days stand out amongst the relentless grind of crew life aboard a fishing vessel and today didn’t start out to be one of them. Until after lunch… Eye Spy Tangi, our skipper and fisherman extraordinaire, decided to change our fishing location and, as luck would have it, that meant that we would steam nearby a large iceberg. In the Ross Sea, icebergs are around but they aren’t plentiful and most certainly aren’t this size! I had been grateful that we were even going sort of close until Tangi said, ‘Stuff it, let’s go sightseeing’. Stuff It, Let’s Go Sightseeing! At…

Tuesday to Thursday, 5-7 December 2023Day 13-15 of 110ish On 5 December, we found the edge of the Antarctic ice pack. Oooooo my was that exciting! The cameras came out and soon we were spotting seals, penguins, and icebergs. The wheelhouse boys were also seeing whales. I saw one spout at a distance…so that’s still on my list to see one closer than that.  Fishing Vessel Or Cruise Ship These were some of my favourite days. Everyone was hanging out and getting excited about the ice and the animals. Stories were being told and it was very lively. I’m getting very excited for East Antarctica too. Sounds like that’s going…