This summer has been unusually calm on Drake Passage. Everyone on the Expedition Team has remarked on it, however, today things are back to normal. Fram had pitched and rolled all through the night. This morning we had winds in excess of 40 knots that were producing seas of 5 - 6 metres. It was decidedly uncomfortable. Many people were seen carrying plain white paper bags everywhere they went and many people weren’t seen at all. They were having some “quiet time” in their cabin. Still, if you weren’t prone to sea sickness, it was a beautiful day. We had a mixture of sun and cloud. The rough blue ocean was beautiful. Giant Wandering Albatross soared around the ship as well as Cape Petrels, Southern Giant Petrels and Black-browed Albatross. We even had fly-bys from Light-mantled Sooty Albatross and a Grey-headed Albatross.
There are always those people who
arrive on Fram who say, “Oh, I hope we have a storm. I’ve heard about Drake Passage and I would really like to
experience a storm.” I wince every
time I hear those words. A real
storm just isn’t a whole lot of fun.
In fact, if you get caught in really serious weather, it can be
downright frightening. I’m sure
that today’s bouncy weather would have satisfied the storm wishers.
At 18:15 we spotted the distant blows
of whales. In fact there seemed to
be quite a few; however none of them were on our course or lose to the
ship. The consensus was that they
were Humpbacks but it was difficult to make a positive identification.
Sea days on Fram are lecture days and
we had plenty of them on the schedule.
In fact because we have an international crowd we had a total of nine
lectures scheduled in three different languages; French, German and English.
By late afternoon, early evening, you
could notice that the seas and winds were beginning to drop. With Fram’s excellent stabilizers, the
ride was now quite comfortable.
Just a little bit of bump and roll with a pitch. If the price of admission to Antarctica
is to cross the inhospitable Drake, then this seemed to be a fair price.
