Another night of rough seas, but thank goodness it calmed
down a bit around noon. I only threw up twice this morning, yippee! By 2pm I
was actually starting to feel hungry. All the motion sickness medication has left
my mouth feeling gunky – either that or it’s because I haven’t been able to brush
my teeth properly for two days.
The patch from Dr. Fellinger seems to be working, as I’m
able to stand and walk slowly around without feeling too nauseous. The ship’s
hotel staff have hung plastic bags strategically along the hallway railings,
which many passengers including myself, are very thankful for.
The naturalists
on board have been giving lectures on Antarctic history, ice and wildlife for
the last couple of days, all of which I’ve missed. So I was pretty excited to
go to my first talk, which turned out to be Chris, our expedition leader’s,
itinerary debriefing for the rest of our journey.
It turns out that our first night in the Drake Passage was
so bad the captain had to drop anchor. If we had charged through the waves we
risked capsizing. As a result we were 16 hours and at least two landings behind
the original itinerary. But were are still definitely crossing the Antarctic
circle!
Now that I’ve kept down a few dry biscuits and feeling less
likely to jump ship, I’m a bit worried about the empty state of my memory
cards. I’ve hardly photographed since boarding. It’s impossible to catch
wildlife unless you’re camped out on deck, and if you are lucky enough to catch
something it’s usually a brief speck in the distance.
Also, the only form of record keeping I have is voice memos.
I had planned to carry a little notebook with me and jot down thoughts as they come,
but writing on a rocking ship turned out to be impossible. Add to that, I was suddenly
having a lot of trouble focusing with my short-distance vision, which freaked
me out, but turned out to be a side effect of the seasickness patch.
In short, I’m feeling out-of-sorts and out of my depth here
on this ship. I feel disabled by my motion sickness, wanting badly to
photograph but unable to. I can’t even hold a proper conversation with my
fellow passengers because I’m concentrating on not being sick.
Okay, enough moaning, all I’m able to do now is recuperate so
I can focus and work hard on the landings.
