Day 35

More traffic appearing on the radar, we are now less than 200miles off the coast. The wind has picked up again, blowing a 6/7 from the south, there was rain today, typical. 

Not much to report, everybody is looking forward to their run ashore at the weekend and the ice pictures are being watched closely.

We've just crossed into South Africa from Namibia

Day 34

A pleasant watch this morning, sea and wind is still slight. I was gas testing a few enclosed spaces* with the chief mate this morning.

Clocks are advancing another hour tonight to align us with Cape Town, time zone GMT+2

At doctor school tonight we sutured duck breasts.

*spaces on board that do not have constant ventilation, so the atmospheres within them can be low oxygen and dangerous to life. There are a lot of protocols to prepare a space like this for entry but we just had to test the oxygen levels this morning as a final check before work could commence.

Day 33

Wind has moderated, F2, swell has calmed, only need the sun to burn through the clouds and it will be quite pleasant.  Continuing the slow steaming to arrive on time in Cape Town, I’m helping to organise the first aid scenario this week.

Approx Pos: 23° 22’S    008° 28’ E

Day 32

Watch change over day, got a really good sleep and went to the gym.  The swell has eased slightly. The weather has been overcast for the past 5 days but today the sun was out, despite the force 5 wind blowing, it was a pleasant afternoon.

Compass correction using the sun at sunset this evening, the sun was very big and could see spots on it, a small flash of green as it disappeared over the horizon.

We could pick up the coastguard station on the VHF, something that should be completely impossible as VHF has a maximum range of 40 miles, the coastguard station is 300 miles away. I think its due to the temperature layers in the atmosphere as a surface to bounce the signal off.
Just over 900 miles to go until Cape Town, current location is 300miles off the coast of Namibia.

Day 31

Swell has increased today, making sleeping more difficult. We have come down onto one engine to make our planned ETA.

Writing some reports for my training book and learning more COLREGS.

Noon position, approx 18° 32’S   004°13’E.

Secret santa has been organised on board so we are all to buy our gifts in Cape Town.

Day 30

Quiet watches today, the swell has increased to about 3m, as its on the nose the speed has decreased slightly and the ship is pitching more.* Nobody on board is seasick but that’ll probably change after Cape Town as approximately 25 persons are coming on board to go to the ice.

I sat in on the monthly safety meeting today, where representatives from the departments get together to discuss any safety related issues that have been raised and we had a SOPEP drill, how to manage spillages on deck e.g. while refuelling, hydraulic pipe burst, etc.

*this ship pitches quite a lot for a merchant vessel. The main reasons are its relatively short length (80m) and the ice breaking bow (the bottom of the bow is effectively cut away so it can ride over the ice and use the ships weight to break the ice).

Day 29

Another quiet day of work, more painting.

 The second mate and I have begun to create the passage plan to the ice. Unlike most passage plans, which are fixed the route could change dramatically depending on ice conditions. The most direct route has impenetrable ice between us and Halley, one option is to steam East to approximately 30° then south to cut through the thinner ice and hug the coast round. Although the thick ice, directly in the way could break up within two weeks which would let us through.  So we really have to play it by ear and make a plan as late as possible.

The Ice report picture above is the only information we have. It is a daily satellite image, the different colours denote the ice thickness dark purple thickest, the grey is Antarctica itself. The ship cannot cut through the dark purple regions.

Approximate current location 12° 25’ S 001° 00’ W