Antarctica: second day at sea

Second day at Sea, Wednesday February 24^th, 2005

After a hearty breakfast we were invited to several lectures including one on Shackelford’s heroic journey and one on birds and penguins. Though the Shackleford lecture was interesting, I found myself falling asleep during it and decided to take a delicious nap before lunch. It was truly heavenly taking an unusual nap during the day and falling asleep to the gentle rocking of the boat.

During lunch, we met another somewhat unusual couple, Lisa and her older husband who is a cardiologist in Boston area. She and him have two young girls, though he has two older children (29 and 35) from a previous marriage. Though she was an athlete when she was younger, she said, she took up running again after the kids were a little more grown and admitted that speed was no longer her goal and we all talked about just the importance of finishing the race.

A very pleasant weather day including bright sun for most of the day and temperatures around 10c made for a nice day. We saw some albatrosses and a few other birds. They announced there were some dolphins around the bow of the ship, but by the time many of us got there they were gone. We thought it was just a ruse to get us down for lunch on time!

After lunch there was an interesting “lecture” on the history of the Antarctica Marathon and all the things that had gone wrong since the first one in 1995. This will be the seventh one and there has always been adventures including one year in 2001 where due to weather and ice conditions there was no way to put ashore and run so they did something like all the marathon runners had to do like 432 laps around the ship to equal the 42km. I think the moral message for us was to expect the unexpected and that this was an adventure and to go with the flow.

After dinner and another lecture on our progress and going through the maps and where we were going, we were treated to a full moon and clear skies over the water at around 58.5 degrees latitude. We were then supposed to guess when and where we would see the first full-scale size iceberg. I have predicted something like 61.4 degrees south and seeing one tomorrow (Thursday) evening at around 1830. The organizers are to go ashore tomorrow night or the following morning to set up the course for our fun on Saturday. The pictures we saw look a bit scary especially the run up the glacier and the mud, but most of us are on for it! Now it is time to settle down and go to sleep again with the gentle rocking of the boat as we continue to travel around 11-12 knots south in fairly calm seas, though the directors say to watch out for lowering barometric pressure by tomorrow morning as we go further into the unprotected Drake Passage.