Antarctica to Zimbabwe – Day 24 – Silver Wind can be found here.
Up dark and early this morning at 5:45 am, eager to discover if we can land on Salisbury Plain.
La Terrazza doesn’t open until 6:00 am, so we debated between room service and popping up to Panorama for a quick pastry. We chose Panorama with the hope that it might be faster – only to find that all the croissants were gone. Another tray came out, and the next batch vanished just as fast. We found what we needed, but only barely. Room service next time!
We then munched on croissants in our suite, tired eyes staring vaguely forward, blobs of sunscreen still absorbing into our skin. Waiting.
We are firmly in expedition territory, as evidenced by today’s Chronicle:
Bing-bing-bong chimed the ship’s intercom.
The expedition leader Marieka has unfortunate news for us. Winds are already clocking in at 40 knots, which means that it’s completely unsafe to deploy zodiacs. Surf in the landing zone is also unworkable, and conditions are only supposed to deteriorate from here.
There’s a small consolation prize, however. We head up on deck to take one last look at Salisbury Plain and find that some king penguins have come to say goodbye:
We head to La Terrazza for a proper breakfast, and then back to our suites so everyone could try to get a bit more rest.
We’d dozed for perhaps an hour when Marieka once more came on the intercom – conditions had unexpectedly improved so we have a brief window before the storm arrives. We will not be able to reach the main colony, but we would get the chance to make a landing.
Not long after, we are in a zodiac on our way to Salisbury Plain. And it’s spectacular:
A fur seal pup
A lost little gentoo amidst a sea of king penguins
One of the amazing of South Georgia is the way the different species mix with one another
The massive colony in the distance
This is one of those experiences that words and pictures will never do justice. The sheer volume of life all around you – the feeling that the world is wild once more – is beyond explanation. Several passengers break into tears upon landing.
We aren’t there long – only an hour. But it’s everything we wanted from our visit to South Georgia. Anything more is simply an added bonus.
Off to lunch!
We get a few more landscape shots before we leave to shelter overnight in Jason Harbour:
Unspecified ‘expedition activities’ were previously planned for the afternoon – a backup plan to cruise Jason Harbour if Salisbury Plain didn’t materialize. Since the primary plan worked out, we are mostly left to our own devices.
We took first place in trivia again, with our daugther correctly remembering Marlin in Finding Nemo was a clownfish and our son recalling that the mythical beast with the head of a man, body of a lion and the feet of a dragon is a manticore.
Off for a bit of table tennis, with the rolling seas again making it quite challenging. We are all slowly improving with practice.
I also noticed that I was having some trouble with debris showing up in my photos – so I go to see Bogdan, who helps remove a few specks of dust from my mirrorless sensor. He used a small air puffer to do it – I’ll have to travel with one in the future.
I then take in a lecture being presented by Jessica, an expedition guide and travel writer, who explains why Ernst Shackleton was so well known compared to more successful explorers like Roald Amundsen.
Some factors included Shackleton’s flair for the dramatic, and his ability as a storyteller. Amundsen’s thorough ways may have made for successful exploring, but they weren’t particularly riveting to hear about. She also explored the role of survivorship bias in terms of the stories that we hear versus the ones that never make it back to us.
I’d hoped to stay throughout the lecture, but unfortunatey have to miss the last portion of it because we need to get ready for dinner. And we’ll need to prepare very thoroughly indeed – because tonight we will be dining with Captain Sasha Kolosov.
Yes, amidst everything else that was going I completely forgot to mention that – late the previous evening – we had returned to our suite to discover we’d been invited to dine with the Captain. My forgetting was so thorough that we even forgot to RSVP, and so – to my mortification – reception had to call us to confirm we were planning to show up.
We are indeed planning to show up, though we have no idea why the Captain would want to dine with us. We could only hope that he knows we have children, and will not engineer some sort of ships emergency to escape the table once he discovers with whom he will be dining.
(I jest, I jest – though I think there may be Silversea passengers who would go to similar lengths if forced to dine with children.)
So we all shower off the mild scent of penguin pong and change into our best attire for dinner that evening before we head off to the evening’s briefing – where Marieke the expedition leader is given a resounding ovation for her role in getting everyone ashore despite the challenging circumstances.
Tomorrow we will (hopefully) be landing at Grytviken and then carrying on with the previously planned zodiac cruise at Jason Harbour. Weather for both days looks promising, though we are not nearly so greedy as to expect three full days of excursions in South Georgia. We will just take it day-by-day and be grateful for what we get.
Off for dinner with Captain Kolosov. Despite our nerves, it’s lovely – and he did realize that we have children. He has two young daughters of his own who he took to the Arctic and plans to take to the Antarctic, so he was curious to talk about our expedition travel with Silversea thus far.
The Captain noted that the Christmas / school break periods tend to have a modest number of children, as many as nine per sailing. We all agreed this is a wonderful opportunity for children to learn about the natural world and human geography, though he noted that there’s no leeway on ages for activities like zodiacs and kayaking – you must meet the minimum age on that exact day, no exceptions possible.
The Captain even shared his favourite ski resort – the St. Ivan Rilski located in Bansko. It looks fabulous, and we’d love to go there someday.
It’s a fantastic meal, and full credit to each of our children who had excellent manners that day.
No pictures of food because I’d feel a bit strange doing that in front of the Captain but the striploin, the lasagna and the breaded veal chop were all very tasty.
With that, it’s time to take a look at the Chronicles for tomorrow:
Fingers crossed it all comes to fruition!
Our balconies are blacked out tonight to prevent unexpected bird visits, so no sunset photo to end the night on. But we’ve had good luck with rainbows, so here we go:
Continue reading Antarctica to Zimbabwe – Day 26 – Silver Wind, South Georgia.