At Sea I

We set sail last night in extremely calm water through the Beagle channel with a little bit of champagne to kick off the cruise. Just to reassure anyone who might have safety concerns (you know who you are!) we did have our safety drill shortly after. Each person has a one-size-fits-all drysuit to wear as well as a lifejacket. We only practised with the life jacket. At each of the two muster stations is an hermetically sealed capsule that can hold 66 people each. They look a little bit like 2 big orange jelly beans at the back of the boat. Apparently the jelly beans are brand spanking new.

The ship is quite comfy and warm - I almost wanted the window open last night. There is a well stocked library, a sauna, an outdoor plunge pool that looks like it's two decks deep, dining room, lecture room, bar/observation lounge, gift shop and reception area. There are tons of outdoor observation areas and a large one behind the bar so it's protected in the wind.

The boat is quiet stable but after we cleared the channel the rolling began and I was glad that Sherree wasn't here as I know that she would be wretched with the motion. I, on the other hand, quite like it. It was like being rocked to sleep last night. I'm not having any reaction apart from a small knot in my stomach but it's not unpleasant. I have a patch for motion sickness on but I don't think that I'll need to replace it when it runs out.

We met the expedition crew and doctor last night at dinner which is informal - partly table service and partly buffet. The food is good generally but not spectacular. They serve early breakfast, breakfast lunch, tea and dinner.  No chance of going hungry!

This morning we got our briefing on zodiac entry + conduct on land and got fitted with our rubber boots. There is a different , high tech life jacket used with the zodiacs that expands on contact with water. It could be interesting to see how it reacts with rain! They gave a very detailed description of the two landing points tomorrow and it looks like there is a fair bit of hiking which i look forward to although I am getting lots of exercise on the many stairs.

The mud room where we suit up for excurions has a couple of huge cable reels that can string two kilometres of cable between the Vavilov and sister ship Ioffe. Somehow the Russian Academy of Science used this to collect acoustic data on what lies beneath - fish, ocean floor, enemy submarines(?) Rumour has it that this ship was used by James Cameron when the first round Titanic videos were shot. Cool, but I couldn't find anymore info to support that after I got back home.

There have been some periodic thuds and sloshing sounds but the crew explained that the noise if from stabilzation tanks. There are two connected tanks holding thousands of gallons of water that flow back and forth side to side and they do get noisy.

We have announcments through the day for meals, lectures and wild life sitings...and there goes the one for parka fitting. As well today there's a lecture on antarctica seabirds by an ornitholgist and as well a short history of the Falklands. It's been a bit grey today but the sun is out now and a number of albatros'
have been following the ship. The bird expert maintains that they are just taking advantage of the updrafts near the ship to get some height and are not looking for food - which they wouldn't get from any of these cruise ships as its a big no-no to dump anything.

It was up to 15C and you don't need a jacket on the back deck behind the bar but this will change in a few days as we head south to South Georgia. You'll have to forgive my spelling as I have weeny little net book with me that is both hard to type on and hard to see.