Drifting in the Drake Passage

January 30, 1994

Halfway through shaving, the florescent light in the bathroom began to flicker. This made me even more sick. In a couple of minutes, it went out entirely, and I was in pure darkness, with half of my face shaved and the other covered with shaving lotion. I opened the bathroom door, and staggered out. I went to Grandma asking where she kept the Dramamine so that I could take another one, because I was finally feeling really sick. She told me where it was, and I desperately fumbled with the packet to get one pill out, which I swallowed immediately. Then, I turned around and proceeded to retch into the toilet. Other than the pill, my stomach was completely empty. When I was finished, I took another pill and drank lots of warm water.

At this time, the Voice from the Deck (the captain) announced that we had a malfunction in the steering system of the ship, and that we had a total blackout and that the ship would be moving very severely, so everyone should stay put wherever they were. Grandma and I just went back to bed, and stayed there until around 9:00am. During all of that time, the ship was silent except for the creaking of the ship itself. No engines, just the sound of creaking and water sloshing around and objects sliding off of things and sometimes breaking. It was a very eerie situation. At times, the rolling of the ships was just incredible. The ship was simply at the mercy of the wind and waves, with nothing to stop it's tumbling. It seemed that we would go over several times, but the ship always righted itself.

Around 8:45am, we heard the engines go back on, and we were told that things were back online again after a problem with the fuel. Apparently, some seawater had been mixed into the diesel fuel, and they had to switch tanks before continuing.

Around 9:30am, we went to breakfast, and sat at the table with the Batemans. Mr. Bateman is an artist, known for environmental art, I believe. They related to us stories about previous crossings of the Drake Passage, and they also told us that they'd heard that Orient Lines had decided not to take the Marco Polo back to Antarctica again, due to the cost and the fact that the ship doesn't seem well suited for it.

At breakfast, we heard about several minor injuries among the passengers. The worst I heard of was someone gashing their head when a pitcher of water fell off a table onto them. Everyone seemed in good spirits, and we all expressed our excitement that interesting things were happening. Mrs. Bateman reminded us that no one at home would be interested in having us say that everything went perfectly smoothly, and that we had to have some interesting events to talk about.

12:20pm

The bridge just reported that the waves outside are from 25 to 30 feet high, and that the wind is blowing at 40 to 45 knots. We're still in the Drake Passage, of course.

The Drake Passage

We just returned from Gilles Allard's first lecture on Ice, Glaciers, Icebergs, and Snow. I taped it all on audio, with his permission. It was fairly interesting, but of course everything was at about a high school level. During the lecture, the ship continued to toll and tumble, and it still is now that I'm back in the cabin, about to get some rest after a long, fitful night.

2:50pm

Things are settling down a bit, but there's still a lot of rough & tumble. We expect it to get smoother as we go.

You may continue with Lars-Eric's Half-moon Island adventure story, or return to today's table of contents.