Working in Antarctica again, but now on a ship.

Fortuna Bay SG

I just wolfed down my lunch and I am finally allowing myself some time to write this update for family and friends. When I still worked at Palmer, Station, I thought that working 54 hours a week was a lot and that it was not allowing me any free time, well that was luxury compared with being on the ship.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. After a 3 months long holiday, which included some time at home in France and then a couple of weeks in the Netherlands (where I did my STCW safety and security training without which I actually cannot be on board the ship. The training included First Aid and life raft operation and information on what to do when you encounter pirates or stowaways). After the Netherlands I flew to San Diego and stayed with Sheri’s super nice uncle and aunt after which I met up with Sheri in Juneau, (Alaska), who had just finished her work. We spent a lovely 3 weeks in Alaska with our best friends Todd, Barb and Liam, who were kind enough to let us use their log cabin as well as having us over at their place all the time. We managed to catch up with most of the many friends we have in Alaska, but I’m bummed that we did not get to see any northern lights.

So nice to be back in Alaska..

and be with friends.

After that we spent some more weeks in San Diego, catching up with everyone of Sheri’s family members before Sheri and I parted ways again. Me to fly back to France and have some more weeks there and Sheri to work on the Columbia river.

After doing many big and small jobs around the house (trying to catch the rodent that was making noise at night, trying to improve the WiFi signal range, being dismayed at the ravages committed to our lawn by wild boar, taking down a  tree to improve our view, discovering how lonely the house is without Sheri and filling the freezer with ready made meals for when she returned and many, many more things) it was finally time to get back to work. I must admit that I did not feel like going at all.
Toulouse - Frankfurt (geez Frankfurt security has to look at each and every of my numerous electronic devices and almost made me miss my flight) and then 13 hours of Frankfurt - Buenos Aires where I was met by an agent hired by the company who was holding up a sign for Miss Gitzels. The agent drove me all across the city to the airport for domestic flights and made sure that I arrived safely at the right gate etc. I’m glad I doubted the information provided by the person who checked me in at Toulouse airport, because my bags were not checked all the way to final destination and they would have stayed spinning on the carousel without me picking them up. Buenos Aires - Ushuaia ended with some gorgeous views of the mountains surrounding Ushuaia and made me like the city immediately.

After spending the night at the Hotel Ushuaia I was picked up and brought to the ship, where my counterpart was happy to see me and do handover. He looked tired. Some 6 hours later we were welcoming our 120 guests for a 21 day trip of Ushuaia - South Georgia - Falkland Islands. It took me almost a week to get my feet under me and before and I could breathe again (I had foreseen this and it was part of my trepidation about starting work again) and actually now that I’m well into my second trip, I still feel a bit overwhelmed at times.

However, I did grab some opportunities to do fun stuff. I went on shore on Westpoint Island (Falklands) and saw big numbers of Black-browed Albatross and Rockhopper penguins  (with their bad-ass eyebrows and red eyes) and had to walk about a mile to see them, so that was fitness taken care of as well. On South Georgia I was able to go on shore at Gold Harbor (crew had told me in advance that it was their favorite). We were welcomed by a beautiful  grey/black colored sand beach with tussock grass in the background. It seemed that the elephant seals had formed a defensive perimeter on the beach to protect the King Penguin colony (not true of course, since the seals don’t care about the penguins and will happily crush them or each other in the heat of mating or fighting). The true reason of course is that they are so massive that it is easier to just stay close to the water rather than a bit more inland like the penguins. The bulls regularly start bloody fights with each until one of them retreats.

Fighting over who gets the female

Ex-baby Elephant seal

The main attraction however are the many thousands of king penguins that are there in all stages (because their breeding cycle is a bit of a complicated one) of maturity and molting. They are not bothered by humans at all and will just walk towards you or past you. It makes it easy to take good pictures. I’m trying to practice my “look-and-take-it-all-in-first  and shoot-pictures-later technique”, but that’s hard when the moment you get out of the zodiac, there is a group of penguins shuffling towards you.

Would you go far inland if you were this massive?

The scene that South Georgia is famous for; lots and lots of King penguins.

I also really appreciated being able to visit the old whaling station of Grytviken, where Sheri has worked in the museum and gift shop. I told Sarah (the government official on the island) that I was Sheri's husband and got a very warm welcome and was immediately invited for tea (no time to take her up on that unfortunately).

Of course I visited Shackleton's grave and had the obligatory toast of whiskey with (more than) a little bit for me and a little pour on the grave of “the boss”,  as he was called.

One of my colleagues was kind enough to point out to me where some of the guest would start their hike later and so I set off to do it by myself. Great to stretch the legs and even better to get some alone time. I’m already getting more and more settled in with work and I  make sure that I grab these little opportunities when they come. Sheri likes to make fun of me, because half the time I have literally no idea where exactly we are. I am so engrossed in my work that I sometimes have to remind myself that I go to special places and that I need to look around. By now we have left South Georgia and have sailed around Coronation Island (Orkney Islands) where the seas were rough and I even got a little queasy. Next was Elephant Island, where Shackleton and his men spent some cold cold months before they managed to reach South Georgia. These are all places that I heard about when cruise ships visited Palmer Station and the tourists would tell us about their itineraries (and I would make fun of the fact that they already forgot where they were the day before).

These past couple of days I was able to solve some pesky computer problems that have been bothering me for a while (one of them was the guest were experiencing
slower than usual internet) so I feel pretty good right now. Just a couple more weeks and I’ll be able to welcome Sheri on board. Yay.

Cooper bay

My colleagues, being just as
excited as me to be outside.

Macaroni Penguins

Young Elephant seal.

Yes Jeff, Sheathbills do soar

Happy to be out and about

Fortuna Bay and more South Georgia pictures below.