Happy 2018

It's been 5 years since Sheri and I spent Christmas and New Year's together, but this year we finally are able to that again and in Antarctica no less. We're so happy about that, we could just jump.

Loving thoughts to all family and friends. Thank you for being in our lives even if we only manage to see you very infrequently. Here's hoping that 2018 will bring you lots of love and happiness.

Hugs & kisses from Michiel & Sheri

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.

Polar bear - ijsbeer - eisbaer

Ich möchte ein Eisbär sein im kalten Polar
dann müßte ich nicht mehr schrei'n
alles wär' so klar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIIGKV27FaY
I had to start this post with these words, because whenever polar bears are mentioned, this new wave song from my youth pops-up into my head.


Hi outside world,

The forth trip in a row that brings us around Svalbard (anyone who plays the game called Risk, knows that this is a vital island to own) is coming to an end, so it is high time that I wrote something about it.

It is so easy to forget that there is an outside world when you are floating on the ocean in a big metal box that is your work, recreation and home. Yep Michiel gets a bit in a funk sometimes. Lots and lots of people around me, but not too many meaningful relations and not too many people to open up to when there’s a bad day. The one person that I instantly became friends with left a couple of weeks ago and will not be back, that’s a bummer. I’m copying Sheri’s writing style a bit here in not only writing about the upsides of this work, but also the downsides.

I think I already wrote about the fact that my cabin is also my office, which makes it very hard to escape work. My phone is a number that rings in several spots (my cabin, the computer kiosk and the server room), and since reception is open till 22:30, they see no problem in calling me till that time. Thankfully my number is not published to the guests. My contract mentions a laughable 44 hour work week plus all the overtime needed to get the work done, so that’s a pretty vague deal, especially if you have some work ethic. Of course, there are plenty of people who work longer days than I do, but I have not yet experienced why they joke that IT Officer is the easiest job on board, because it hasn't been the case so far.

That said, people around me do encourage me to join the daily outings and go on shore once in a while. Yesterday for the first time in 2 weeks I did so and joined the long Athletic Hike which luckily lived up to its name (unlike a previous outing when we turned around after a mere 40 minutes) and was quite energizing. Unfortunately 1 member of our group (that’s me)  did not get the memo and was wearing his hiking boots in stead of waterproof boots and soon had to deal with the consequences of doing a couple of stream crossings and sinking into ankle deep mud. I did not mind getting wet feet, but I was hearing a little disapproving voice of Sheri in the back of my head talking about setting a good example when you are part of the crew, and she would have been right.) Not to fear, no one scolded me for it, but instead all allowed me to make self deprecating jokes about the fact that I get out so seldom, that I am inexperienced. Our group had some 12 people in it and was led by our Expedition Leader, who has been an EL many times before, but not for our company. Because Sheri has been an EL several times now, I have a fairly good idea of what that job entails and admire people who are able to pull it off (especially knowing that all that responsibility only earns them a whopping 20 or 30 dollar per day more than someone hired as a Naturalist, who has a lot less responsibility and planning to do).

Apart from hiking boot-soaking moss and mud, we were rewarded by nice views of mountains and tundra, barnacle geese, snow buntings (Svalbard’s only songbird), my first reindeer  and my first arctic fox. The arctic fox was interesting because it had a white and brown coat, since it had not totally switched over to his summer colors yet and what struck me was the fact that it seemed more curious than afraid of us. I’ve been told that that is because it has met so few humans, that it does not have reason to fear them (equating human with food is not the reason, because we are not allowed to have anything edible with us when we go on land).

Like in the Antarctic, they also have several species of skua here. The one is saw (oops I forgot the name) has a tail that is more like a bird of pray, but when I saw the head up close, I recognized this villain from its Antarctic cousins.

These trips are billed as going into the land of the polar bear, so that is what a lot of people come for. Polar bears are marine mammals that are dependent on ice, because they hunt seals that are hauled out on the ice. We’ll look at the ice charts and find areas that have a good density of ice and then there will be several people on lookout duty. There is a friendly competition going on between guest, staff and officers to see who spots the most wildlife.

There are at least 4 kinds of polar bears that we could see. The first one is called the pixel bear, which means that it is so far away that it is only 1 pixel in size.

A pixel bear far in the distance.

Don't look too hard for a bear in this one, it's only a landscape with bird

I think we do count them, but of we are really on the look out for, is the “Quality Bear” - the bear that is nearby enough that we can see it without binoculars. When we see one, we will observe its behavior to see what it is doing and then slowly we will try to get closer without disturbing it. If we change its behavior, it means that we have failed and have disturbed it, which would be bad for the bear if it had to spend precious calories in trying to avoid us, but also for us, because it could make the bear shy away from boats in the future. Not only are our navigators extremely skilled in the slow and precise maneuvering, the guests are told to be very quiet when they go outside, not to slam doors and only speak in whispers. The more bears we see the harder it seems for the guests to remember these rules.

Quality bear.

It has noticed us, but then went on its way.

Very much not interested in our presence.

Reflections are always great. Two bears for the price of one.

The third kind of bear is the “Bear on a Kill”, where ideally we see it getting its prey. You might see a bear walking around, with its head held up high and shaking from left to right, because a bear is “all nose” and can smell a seal from a very long distance away and by moving their head from left to right they cover a lot more area. Only some 10 percent of attempts are successful, but once it has killed, it will go for the blubber of the animal, because that provides the most energy. Sometimes they will eat till they’re full and bury the remainder (so that other bears don’t smell it so easily) to finish eating after a nap. I think the most prized bear however is the “Bear with Cubs” which of course makes for the cutest pictures.

 Our ship has an so called “open bridge policy” which means that at any moment the guests are welcome on the bridge. This has been a very good decision, because it is the best lookout position of the ship, with the added bonus of staying warm and protected and getting all the information from the naturalists. The captain himself also has a wealth of information on the animals and their behavior. He also has a wealth of sarcasm built up over the years from receiving all these guests, some of whom seem to have forgotten to pack their brains while they were packing for this trip. Today we had a good laugh at someone who asked which of the 2 hikes was going to be longer, the long one or the medium one. Sigh.

There are a lot of interesting things to learn about polar bears. The females are smaller than the males (of course?), but also the female cubs are already smaller than their brothers. They are extremely good swimmers and have been recorded to swim hundreds of miles. When the ice is gone, they will spend time on land and not eat for months and if the mothers are pregnant and hole up, they will not eat for even longer.  They might be forced to swim for hundreds of miles if they dug a den on a piece of ice that drifted far away when they finally emerge. They hardly do any peeing during den period, but absorb most of it back into their body to get the remaining nutrients. They have something akin to webbed tissue in their enormous paws to help with swimming. And I could go on and on, if only a had listened to the wealth of information the naturalists provide to our guests. As it is, I am busy enough with work and am already happy that I was able to finish this post.
:-)

And some more pictures, just because it was so hard to choose.

Bear on a kill.

I just found these 2 pictures on my SD card. 

You can still recognize that it was a seal.

A day in the life of IT Michael

Stockfish (cod) hanging to dry in Reine, Norway

 Hi friends,

It is now almost 1 month into my 3 month deployment.  Jeroen, the colleague that was doing the turnover  with me left to work on another Nat. Geo ship and I am left in charge of IT here. I’ve had my first turnaround day (where the previous guests leave and the new ones come on board) and there were no major hiccups with the checking in of the new guests (unlike the first time). That very same evening our hotel manager hosted a welcome cocktail evening, where he describes the workings and practicalities on the ship and unfortunately expects the IT officer to give a little talk about how the internet works on board. I say unfortunately, because I do not like to talk in front of a group of people (2 people is already a big number  of people to talk to :-) , but I think I managed well enough. Sheri says that that was a little growth moment and I think there might be more growing still  to come. Things have slowly settled down a little bit, but I’m still working lots of hours. The fact that my cabin also doubles as my office makes it hard to escape from work. During turnover my colleagues tried to make it clear to me that it is important to grab opportunities for doing stuff when you get the chance, just to stay sane and it is after all part of the reason for working here. Luckily my colleagues from the galley have been good about inviting me along with them when they go out. I’ve become better at judging when my IT services are needed the most and when it is quiet enough to go for a hike on land or to go to the gym without being radioed to come and help someone with their computer.

My friends from the galley.

Reine

I have a shower and toilet in my cabin which is a great improvement over Palmer Station because there I had to go down the hall to the boys room which was shared with a lot of other guys. One day I noticed that I really liked the smell of the soap in my shower dispenser, it took me another couple of days before I realized why that was...It was the same stuff we had at Palmer Station. Another improvement as well is the fact that I don’t have to share my cabin with anyone else; I love that. Because I need to check various things on our TV system, my cabin also has a nice big TV screen. Yet another perk is the fact that I have a computer with an “always on” connection to the internet (the crew all have to buy minutes at $20 for 250 minutes) which, of course, I need to be able to do my job. My cabin has a port hole which is my little window on the outside world, situated a little bit above the water line.

My cabin.

I usually have it closed, because I like to sleep in a room that is as dark as possible and then I am too lazy to open it in the morning. Some previous inhabitant put up a poster that mimics an opened window looking out at sea, which I quite like it because it makes the room a bit bigger. I also printed some pictures of Sheri to make it feel like she is here with me. Contract periods will usually not be longer than 3 months (compared to 7 months for Palmer Station), but that is still a really long period to be away from one’s wife and other family, especially in times of bad news from home. When someone in the family gets sick or dies, the loneliness and a feeling of powerlessness prevails and I get homesick. At such moments I try to call my family and try to go out on deck in the hope of seeing beautiful scenery.

A normal day starts usually with the rattling sound of the anchor being lowered as we will have reached some new location during the night. Then the voice of the Expedition Leader will come over the PA system wishing everybody a good morning, good morning (always repeated) and describing a little bit of the plan for the morning. I get up and check to see if we still have internet or if we’ve lost the signal in which case I go up to the server room and try and find the satellite. A quick shower and then I go to the breakfast buffet. I have been unable to continue my routine of eating just oatmeal in the morning. Nowadays I will have fresh fruit and an omelet. I will have been greeted by the numerous Philippine waitstaff with everything from and exaggerated Me-chcheel, to Michael and Mr IT. and they will start pouring my black coffee because they remember from day one, that that’s how I like it. I am still trying to memorize all of their names, but luckily we all wear name tags. Breakfast service is great, until the wait staff decide that it is getting too late, at which point I get totally ignored.

After breakfast I show my face at the reception, just in case she has received any IT questions and then I go upstairs to take a little walk outside and at least get some impression of where we are. I also try to visit the bridge to say good morning to them. I then go to my cabin to start work. I make sure to leave my door open, so people can see that I’m actually working and not sleeping. if I’m not very visible, people might not see much of my work. That’s why I also sometimes work in our iCafe, but I don’t like that so much because the ergonomics are not very good there, combined with the fact that there are too many distractions (like guests with questions). Usually when there’s a problem that I could solve remotely, I will choose to physically walk over to the computer and help the person in question. At 10 we have a coffee break where a bunch of officers and some galley people enjoy some coffee and a light snack prepared by the kitchen. I make sure that I always go just for the social aspect. I eat lunch in our officer’s mess (where everyone who is not deck crew eats) and who does not feel obliged to eat with the guests. I  usually think that I should take a nap, but in reality I will be doing a bit more work related stuff. After lunch it is usually more of the same, with regular calls on my phone which I answer by saying “IT Michael” (ask you can tell, I have given up on trying to make people pronounce it as Michiel).  Towards 5pm I usually tell the reception that I’m going to the gym and that I may be hard to reach. Dinner is at the same time as the guests, which usually means 19:30. I am allowed to eat in the bistro/restaurant, but then I need to be dressed nicely and it will probably take at least an hour if not two, so that’s why I almost always choose to eat in the officers mess.
I’m allowed 2 free (not top shelf) drinks per day (unless I show up in uniform at the daily recap/cocktail hour during which the drinks are free as well), so sometimes I will go to the lounge to order something before heading to bed. Unlike in the beginning, sleep usually comes easy, now that I am settled in enough to not be bothered by any ship noise.

Fun facts:
The current trip (around Svalbard) seems to attract a younger crowd. Te youngest is aged 11 and the oldest is 87, with the average age being: 59.
75% is from the US
20% from Australia and a handful of Danes, Brits and others.

Beautiful Bergen

It happened to be independence day in Bergen, so lots and lots of traditional dresses.

Note to self: Bergen has an Ethiopian restaurant.

Sailing to the end of the world

Hi friends,

For those who have not heard the news, I've said my (somewhat emotional) goodbyes to Palmer Station and almost immediately started working on the National Geographic Explorer, which is a expedition ship from the Lindblad company in very tight cooperation with National Geographic. They have a fleet of small and medium sized boats that explore the world while offering luxury food and expert commentary from knowledgeable Naturalists.

I’ve now been aboard the NG Explorer for a week and a half (actually by the time I got around to posting this it is more like 3 weeks) and I must say that it feels much longer. The first 2 days the ship was still at the shipyard in Bremerhaven, where it received all sorts of maintenance on the engines and systems, paint work and received a bunch of supplies. The outside contractors that were working on the ships engines, sailed with us for the first week, to finish their work. They were a specialized bunch of people who do these jobs on a number of different ships, I remember that the first time I saw them, they looked a bit ragged and unkempt, but now I know that they have been working long hours below deck to finish their tasks.

The last day before the passengers arrived in Edinburgh the ship underwent a remarkable transformation from having protective cardboard and plastic everywhere to being a shiny and fresh cruise ship. The IT person who is doing the handover with me had warned me in advance about the fact that things are very, very hectic immediately after shipyard and he wasn’t kidding. Shortly before, several software packages had been upgraded, including our suite of programs that manages everything from hotel bookings, key card programming, passenger information, point of sale and inventory resulting in the fact that a couple of hours before the guests arrived, we found out that the magnetic part on their keycards needed to be encoded again. We barely managed in time.

Troubleshooting access to rooms will be a recurring theme in my trips. All the guest rooms have a TV which has a selection of movies that are hosted in our system, but since there had been a power outage during shipyard we had to visit every one of them and reset them.

Another big part of my job will be to help people connecting to the wifi signal that hooks them up to the internet. They can choose from 3 paid plans. Of course we only have a very small connection that goes through a satellite connection. (4Mb p/s to potentially share with 150 guests and some work computers, while at home you might easily have 10Mb just for yourself). So far it seems that not more than 40% of the couples have signed up.

During the 2nd day at sea, the guest were welcomed in the lounge, where the captain gave his official welcome speech and introduced his officers. During my job interview I thought nothing much of the title IT Officer, but I soon learned that indeed I would be an officer and had to have a uniform with stripes on my shoulders. The last time I had stripes on my shoulders was when I fulfilled my obligatory military service (a requirement they did away with after I fulfilled mine), but it does feel a bit different than wearing a t-shirt. There are a couple of moments in the day where you are expected to wear your uniform (for instance if you choose to dine with the guests in the restaurant area) and introductions by the captain is one of those moments. He did a very nice job of introducing me and told everyone how they went all the way to Palmer Station, Antarctica to find their IT person.

Since the Explorer has visited Palmer Station several times, I thought I had gotten a good impression of how their people interact with each other and I must say that I have been as well received and welcomed as I expected. There are three main groups of people on board; the most numerous are the deck and hotel crew who are all Filipinos (I think foreign workers are the biggest source of revenue for the country), and then there are the Expedition staff  and the Officers.  I recognize a number of the Filipinos from when they visited Palmer Station store where I frequently had to tell them that we did not have any more small or extra small size clothing any more. They sometimes work as much as 9 months on board, while the other folks do a couple of trips (the Naturalists) or 3 months like I do.

This first trip will take us all around the British and Irish isles in 17 days, ending up in Bergen, Norway where our guests will disembark and new guests will embark for our journey in the Norwegian Fjords. I have not had much time yet to enjoy the scenery, because I want to fully focus on the turnover information I get from my colleague. There is so much to learn that I am absolutely knackered at the end of the day. Despite that, I still manage to sleep poorly, because of all the new sounds of rattling and  banging as a result of the cabin being very close to the water line.  Just like at Palmer Station, every room occupant will have something to complain about (even true for some of the guest cabins). Luckily I have a cabin to myself which allows me to have some alone time and recharge a bit. Unfortunately there is not enough space in my cabin to do proper yoga, but I have been able to go to the gym every few days, which is very much needed to keep me sane and at a decent weight, because the food is pretty nice for the crew as well. More on that in a later post.

Gannets in flight.

Fowey, a little speck on the Cornish coast.

Lovely Irish hills, near Donegal

also near Donegal

Holey water well, near Donegal where passersby will add to the collection of rocks.