Drake Lake or Drake Shake???

Talk about fortunate - we got Drake Lake. YAY!!!!! Drake passage is renowned for being one of the most violent pieces of water in the world nad was my source of greatest fear for the journey. I hate being seasick and seasick and scared together is even less fun.

When I say lake I don´t mean lake like you would think of a lake. We were still rocking and rolling but it was not too bad. My tablets took care of the worst of it and apart from feeling a bit fatigued I was quite relieved that it was tolerable.

Breakfast told a different tale however. Where dinner had been a full compliment of passengers (84), breakfast had no more than 30 poeple. Apparently the ships doctor had been kept fairly busy through the night with people who had not taken their tablets before we hit rougher water and were suffering for it. Dave of course took nothing and was almost disappointed that it was Drake lake - I think he wanted to pit himselñf against the mighty Drake heh heh.

I was so impressed with my feeling of well being I decided to go up onto the bridge deck and check ou the scene. What a stupis idea.

While our little cabin might have seemed a bit rocky it was nothing compared to the top decks. The movement up there was horrendous!!! I was hanging onto the railing for dear life and couldn´t get back down to the bar level quick enough. My opinion of our cabin changed plenty over the course of that day. Those who had portholes were now subjected to watching the heaving sea at close quarters, had constant light (sunset was officillay 10.45pm but I´m pretty sureit didn´t actually get dark for amore than a couple of hours at most) and had heaps more movement than those of us in the bowels.

The day was spent in lectures, birdwatching and photographing off the back deck and gettign to kow our fellwo passebngerts.

The bird photography became a real challenge for me. I had attended a lecture in the morning and was so exctied to see the petrels, skuas and albatross cruising the wake of the boat. It turns out that catching a big bird as it effortlessly soars past at speed while standing on the deck of a heaving ship is a far bigger ask than I had anticipated. Certainly took my mind off the seas though and was a nice activity to pursue outside.

On this particular voyage we were lucky enough to have a fantastic bunch of crewmates. A group of 3 guys had left their overland tour to take a side trip with us to Antarctica. Steve (Aus), Troy (Aus) and Sam (UK) were a breath of home in a sea of USA voices. Nanja (Neth) was to prove gold for me as she and I hit it off straight away and have very similar personalities. Bascially, we got on like a house on fire. To round out our little group there was Dennis (Irish) and Philana (US).

Robb and Linda (Neth) were across the hall from us and Linda had a wickedly quick sense of humour which kept us all in stitches when the boys weren´t up to some form of mischief.

Our first day at sea passed with ease and relatice comfort. The excitment of actaully being out there doing it made the time pass quickly for all of us I think.