Antarctica on a Tall Ship

It always takes time to settle into a new crew, but it was particularly noticeable after such a long voyage when the crew had become really tight. This change made for a different atmosphere in the Upper Mess and was a great refresher after 2 months at sea.

We are really lucky to have our two “extra deck officers. One is the famous Skip Novak, who will be the Expedition Leader and is an absolute Antarctic legend, and the other is “Piles”, who is an old JST employee who now works as full time Mate for the National Geographic Polar cruise ship. So, we have lots of local knowledge on board! Piles and Skip will be working together to help us stay safe and protect the delicate Antarctic environment as we travel south and land on the continent.

After four days we re-crossed the Drake passage and sailed across the Antarctic conversion zone, so we were in Antarctic waters. It wasn't long after crossing the zone that we saw our first iceberg looming over the horizon and we quickly instigated full Antarctic lock down by closing the forward water tight doors and doubling up on qualified watch ratings on the bridge at all time. 

First view of icebergs in our path (a sign of things to come)

On the 21^st February we arrived a Deception Island at 1400hrs. This is an active volcano and formed a ring rising out of the sea with a tiny inlet into the mouth of the volcano which forms a lagoon which is known to be the safest anchorage within Antarctica. The inlet is known as Nelson's bellows and we sailed through and did a tour of the inside of the volcano before launching the DOTI boat (our small zodiac boat) to take all the voyage crew onto the shore where they were free to explore the old whaling station and English station that had been abandoned after the most recent eruption in the 1960's. The island is covered with ash so that what looks like rocks is actually ice saturated in ash! The voyage crew returned to the ship in the late evening and we were finally anchored with engines off and all checks completed at 2330hrs.....A very long day, but completely worth it!

Old whaling station and Base A on Deception island

 As we continued to sail south past Trinity Island the scenery became even more beautiful and I felt particularly blessed when I was walking across the deck to lunch just at the moment that a hump back whale decided to breach off the starboard side. After my evening rounds I followed my usual pattern of making myself a cup of tea in the upper mess and headed to the Chart room to report to the officer on watch (the bosun). On stepping outside towards the chartroom I skidded on the snow that had settled on the cold deck even though the on-duty watch had already put salt down.

After a night at sea (with the Captain and OOWs steadfastly looking out for icebergs) I woke up and walked across the deck to breakfast to be greeted by the most perfect day Antarctica could possibly produce. Blue skies, flat water and we were surrounded by magestic snow covered mountains with icebergs all around us (so that the helm kept having to change to avoid them). It was a perfect. Even more beautiful than I had dared to imagine. The blue colours within the icebergs I had seen on TV but it just doesn't do it justice. It is such a beautiful colour and the atmostphere down here just fills me with inspiration. I can now understand why so many of the current polar experts came down here once and then did everything they could to forge an Antarctic career.....It's just stunning. 

Passing bergs

On the advice of Skip, the Captain decided to make an additional stop-over at Cuverville so that we could land the voyage crew in amongst a large colony of gentoo penguins. We dropped the anchor within a large bay facing the Cuverville landing site where we were surrounded by icebergs and gentoo penguins that jumped out of the water in little pods moving between the land and the open sea. It was so amazing to sea such a tranquil and yet dynamic environment that was pristine. The wildlife continued to enthrall me when an Orca whale surfaced and blew about 5m from the bow just as we were preparing the DOTI boat. It was great to see it so close up and it made me remember the cirlce of life and force of nature as the great orca patrolled the beach for the tiny gentoos.

Curverville

 After lunch I was allowed a short stint ashore and climbed into the DOTI boat to help one of our wheelchair users transfer in from Nelly. It was great being on a little boat again and fantastic being so close to the icebergs and leaping penguins. It was just impossible to know where to look, the scenery was so incredible. We landed and positioned the wheelchair facing the gentoo colony and I wandered down the beach to see a couple of whale vertebrae (left overs from an old whale station). I then walked very carefully around the colony and enjoyed a few runs up the hills in 2m deep snow to stretch my legs (and practise for the Sahara!) The gentoo penguins were real characters and fell over on the slopes nearly as much as I did! I was being so careful to stay more than 15m away from the penguins that I nearly missed the skewer as it flew a low pass over my head and I only just managed to sheild my face as it did a second dive bomb and nipped at my coat. It landed close to me and I slowly moved away so as not to disturb it any more (although I'm still not sure why it took such a dislike to me!) 

Looking back towards Nelly from my position at the top of the slope was like looking back 50 years at one of the early tall ships expeditions to Antarctica. I wonder if Shackleton felt the same sense of awe when I looked back towards his ship with a foreground full of penguins and icebergs and a back drop of snow laiden mountains.

On the 24^th February we sailed around Cuverville island in absolutely perfect conditions. Skip made sure we all kept perspective by commenting over dinner “it can only get worse” says Skip....and it did. But first we were able to enjoy the flat waters of the straits, sailing under blue skies, surrounded by bergs and mountains (althgough we were keeping a keen look out to avoid the numerous “growlers”).

We were lucky enough to see humpbacks within 5m of the ship- waving there pectoral fins and pounding them on the waters surface before rounding their back above the water, blowing and showing a full tail flip. This was repeated on numerous occasions by various groups of whales (at various distances from the ship) alongside the displays of jumping gentoo penguins and the constant backdrop of beautifully carved icebergs and mountains. We also passed Weddell seals bathing on the larger icebergs and gentoos and adelies congregating on other bergs. We were even blessed by the appearance of a leopard seal. The size of this seal was impressive (about 4m in length) and it's jaws were big enough to fit a mans head inside (a concept that I would prefer not to dwell on!)

We continued to motor as the weather deteriorated into a snow storm and all of us on deck resembled snow men as we prepared to anchor in Port Lockroy just as dinner was being called in the upper mess. It wasn't until later in the evening, when the Captain called me to take the sticks (turn on and control the main engines from the bridge) so that he could drop a second anchor, that I was able to take in the surroundings. We were anchored in a bay surrounded by shear cliffs of white with some low lying rock off our starboard stern where a few buildings stood against the weather....This is Port Lockroy.

Within a couple of hours I was called to the bridge again as a large iceberg came perilously close to Nelly's hull and the Captain was worried that we would have to move to avoid a collision. But, luck was on our side so the deck officers launched the DOTI boat in preparation for any more large icebergs appearing in the bay instead.

In terms of the British presence in Antarctica: Port Lockroy was known as Base B (and Deception Island was Base A) due to the time of arrival of the first British explorers. At first Port Lockroy was a general base for exploration but it soon became a scientific hub. The science eventually outgrew the tiny low lying island of land so that Port Lockroy is now maintained by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust who put a small team on the island for each summer season to maintain the buildings, man the little museum and shop and generally provide a presence in the “safest anchorage in Antarctica” for passing cruise ships.

2 2nd's in Antarctica (Marcin is the 2nd mate and I'm the 2nd engineer)

Having dropped two anchors and Nelly having been blown around in circles during our time in Port Lockroy, there was no surprise when the deck team struggled to untangle the anchors as we came to leave to head for a tour around one of the nearby islands for a bit of sight seeing and to allow us to make some fresh water using our reverse osmosis (RO) plant. The deck team put in an enormous effort navigating us through the Gerlach channel as a snow storm pretty much blinded us over night so that the on-watch team had to rely mostly on radar to avoid icebergs. Well done guys!

We returned to Port Lockroy and as the VC went for a walk around some of the surrounding land to see some more penguins and the blue-eyed shag colony's, I got stuck into the 500hour service on both of the main engines. It was great to spend some time on my own in the engine room looking after “my boys” and I felt that they appreciated a bit of TLC. It was, however, slightly unfortunate that my “ships cold” that I had been desperately trying to ignore decided to manifest itself as I lost the ability to breath due to a tightness in my lungs, constant coughing/sneezing, hot/cold flushes, muscle aches, pains and weakness....This made wrestling with the belt tensioner even more frustrating than usual and I was so grateful when the Chief had pity on me and let me finish up half an hour early.

We are “supposed” to work approximately 0800-1700hrs at sea with ever other night on duty (which involves about 30minutes of checks etc. at 2200hrs and anything else that requires attention in the late afternoon, evening or early morning). However, in reality we are working much longer hours than this, and even when we aren't working we are still expected to help out whenever required or answer questions etc. So it is easy to find yourself quickly exhausted on a long voyage. After the toils of the Southern Ocean voyage and the madness of the maintenance period in Ushuaia I am finding that I am much more physically and mentally tired than I would like to be. I'm still absolutely loving being in Antarctica and doing my job, but I am finding it very hard (and I'm not ashamed to admit it) as this is a physically and mentally demanding job and you are constantly on the go here. 

To make matters worse, my cold turned into three day long flu-like virus with a vomiting bug thrown in for good measure. This meant that I missed our first attempt to reach Vernansky station- which we had to abort due to ice in the channel and was only vaguely aware of us arriving when I stepped onto the deck for some fresh air and caught the most amazing view of a solid blue iceberg! I could just about see a hut on a near by ice pack which was the Vernansky station. This is the old Faraday station where all the English science moved to when it became too big for the Port Lockroy island. The station was abandoned by the brits and is now run by the Ukranians, who were happy to come on board the Lord Nelson for a while to enjoy our bar and we were all pleased of the new faces. It was great being so far south and the VC were taken off on the zodiacs to explore one of the surrounding islands.

The next day we headed back to Port Lockroy to wait for a weather window to head back North and I was pulled out on deck (in my “only just well-enough to stand up” state) to be stood on the bridge and pointed to look out in the direction of a small block of ice that was floating within 15m of the ship. On top of the ice was lying a massive leopard seal. It must have been about 4m long and it was amazing to see so close! It had such presence and you could imagine the damage it could do with it's jaws when it opened its mouth to yawn. So much power in such a sleek looking creature. Completely awe inspiring. Once again I felt so privileged to be in this wonderful place.

We finally found a good enough weather window to start heading North, but the winds were strong and the sea was messy and we were soon being pushed down by a Northally gale that kept us well below the South Shetland islands, heading west through a storm. It was a demonstration of true Southern Ocean conditions and (once again) the deck team stood long and hard watches where they had to constantly support the helmsman as they battled through rogue waves and gales.....It was an amazing experience and only fortified my desire to come back to sail the Drake Passage in a smaller yacht. What a ride!

After 4 days of heavy seas we finally crossed the Antarctic Convergence Zone and we were really on our way back to Ushuaia. Whilst I am definitely ready for some leave time, I can't help feeling that I have a lot of unfinished business in Antarctica and I know that I am going to do everything that I can to find a way back down here. It really is a place that can't be described, or photo'ed but needs to be experienced. It makes you feel small and yet part of something at the same time and really illustrates the raw beauty, power and vulnerability of nature. 

Sailing the Southern Ocean and Cape Horn: Chatham Islands to Ushuaia

Up the mast doing wiring in the Chatham Islands

 At the Chatham Islands I had to take advantage of the last opportunity to do alongside work until we reached Argentina- which was such a long way away that it still seemed like an abstract concept. So I climbed to the top of the main mast to the mast head lights where I changed the old lamp system to a new LED lamp. This was great fun, although trying to cut and crimp wire whilst balancing in a harness and bracing your knee against the 30mph winds is never easy!

The Chatham Islands have around 200 inhabitants and the berth was very exposed to the oncoming wind so after the entire ship decanted into the only pub on the island to use the wifi for a few hours, we quickly had to move off the berth and spend the night at anchor. I was really disappointed about this as it meant that I couldn't do my final land run before the long stint at sea...But at least I got some exercise climbing the mast a couple of times.

Bosuns Mates working on the deck house roof

On the first day at sea in the Southern Ocean I had to investigate the wiring of the galley hot plate range. The heavy swell meant that I ended up sitting in a bath of lamb fat (that was leaking out of the Combi oven) and I was periodically pelted with potatoes that kept flying out of the bucket on the wash board above my head. In fact, I spent a large amount of time working in the Galley in the first week at sea and it was commented on that I spent nearly as much time in their as the cooks assistants! But there just seems to have been a steady stream of galley jobs; water boiler lever, galley lights, fridge lights, oven wiring, toaster element.....All in a days work ;-)

Working in the fridge

We had new years (hogmany) at sea and I started looking back over 2013. I realised that I started it in the middle of the Indian Ocean and now I'm going to finish it in the middle of the Southern Ocean! In between I have been in the Andaman Islands and India, Wales, London, Scotland, Canary Islands, Azores, Malta, Southampton, Vietnam, Denmark, Helsinki (Finland), Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand and the Chatham Islands....Not bad for 365 days really! :-)

Shortly after the spate of galley jobs I spent 4 days marching through big services on all four engines (2 generators and 2 main engines)- one a day, interspersed with taking tours around the engine room that was enabled due to the uncharacteristically beautiful flat weather. It is always really hard to know what to say about the machinery in the engine room as I know that I find it much more interesting than it probably really is so I have to try not to talk too much! However, the crew seemed genuinely interested and pretty much every one took a tour and asked lots of questions.

 

The Cheif and I working on the fire alarm system in the Chart Room

The days are started to become very routine (although my job involves dealing with different challenges every day). All on board slowly accepted their new reality of living in this small space in the middle of the ocean. It's a strange thing really, but one that man has been doing since we first took to the sea. I think the attraction to a life on the ocean is quite a romantic one. We all yearn to get away from the complications that arise from our modern day living so the idea of having time to simply think and stare out at the ocean or up into the night sky is really attractive. However some crew quickly realise that doing this for a long period time on a day-to-day basis has the secondary effect of making you realise how small we really are in this big blue world.

It is ironic that people say that they are “running away to sea” when, in fact a lot of problems can be exacerbated by life on board. This is certainly showing true for some of the voyage crew living in the fo'c'sle who came to get away from the annoying habits of family and are instead having to live in a very confined space with the annoying habits of their fellow crew. Maybe this experience will give them perspective on the habits of those back home and make them more patient.

Relaxing on the bow after work and looking up at the sails

As entertainment, some of the VC have been giving talks in the lower mess every other afternoon. Once of these talks was given by a gentleman named JR, an ex-para, who spoke about his involvement in a Quadrathon between Brighton and Gravesend in the UK in the early 80s. It was amazing to hear about his training and preparation for the event- what an inspiration! He was obviously in a completely different league from me in terms of fitness and training, but he stressed that his psychological preparation was as important as his long training runs.....I will take solace in this as I do my meagre step machine training every morning!    

Long voyages certainly change people. Usually for the better. I know that I have become much more laid back, which is nice because I used to be a chilled out person, but somewhere between the territorial army and research applications I lost the ability to allow things to be out of my control. Now a days, in my off time, you can generally find me sitting with a book or writing music. This more relaxed world view is particularly useful when the engine room alarms go off and I am suddenly faced with a gushing pipe or a machine that needs to be switched off immediately....More haste, less speed, and breathe.

I think I have mentioned before that I am one of the fire fighters on board Nelly. Actually I am #2 in a two man team with the Bosun (Leslie, on this occasion). We had a few fire drills during the voyage which I always enjoy. I think its so important to practice life saving drills until they are second nature to all involved. For one of the drills we had to don our kit and drag the hose down into the starboard fo'c'sle. As we moved through the lower mess smoke started to appear (signs saying “smoke were posted on the pillars” so we had to crouch and crawl to the water tight door that had been closed to try and contain the fire in the fo'c'sle. We used the water hose to cool the door and I had to pump the handle to manually crack open the heavy steel door so we could start hosing inside the fo'c'sle. As I pumped the door more and more, Leslie spotted a casualty lying on the floor. It was life over limb so I ducked under Leslie's hose and dragged the casualty out by her ankles and back through into the lower mess. I started to pump the water tight door shut again in an attempt to contain the fire and save the ship before we took the casualty back up to central command at the main mast, where the Medical Purser took over. The drill continued as we were asked to enter a second time to do some boundary cooling and continue to fight the fire from the outside. We then mustered the whole ship and simulated an abandonment to finish off the exercise. It was great to go through all the motions and pumping the door reminded me of the first time I ever wore a BA (fire fighting) kit...

I was 13 years old and on my first RAF cadet camp in RAF Brize Norton. We were taken to see the RAF fire fighters and they chose me (the smallest girl there) to put on all the kit. Once I was kitted out they told me to run to the other end of the hanger and back. So I did. They were all so shocked that I could do it that they didn't tell me that they were joking until I had run back puffing and panting in the summer heat of the hanger!

Fire Drill (I'm on the left and Lesley, the Bosun, is on the right with the hose)

On one of the (many) occasions during the voyage when I had to do a 250hrs service on one of the generators I found an unfortunate blockage in the oily bilge pump. I discovered this when the Port generator decided to throw up on me instead of allowing me to pump dirty oil out of it's sump into the bilge pump pipe. Of course the pipe flew off with the pressure and the resulting spout of oil went down the front of my overall so that the oil ran down my chest, stomach, leg and eventually pooled inside my right boot...Nice.  

In general, things for the first half of the Southern Ocean were just “swell” i.e. The ship was constantly rolling! The sea swells were enormous with long fetches that Nelly fitted into perfectly! It made walking around (and doing anything) involve pin-balling off the bulk heads so we were all covered in bruises and exhausted from not being able to sleep as Nelly attempted to throw us out of our bunks on each rogue wave. 

However, we had lots of good runs where the wind picked up to gail force and kept us a little bit more steady. Obviously this meant that the deckies had to think about the stress on the sails etc. But I was just happy because the reduced rolling and steady heel (sideways angle in the ship) meant that (on those gail-fed nights) I knew which way to have my head during in my bunk to avoid getting a head rush. In comparison, on most nights Nelly just rolled l both ways to about 40 degrees which meant that either way I lay I spent half the night nearly standing up and half the night with my head below my feet (...stupid badly orientated cabin!!)

Working with the Bosuns Mates in the sail locker

I spent a couple of days involved in lots of little “5 minute” jobs that ended up taking me most of the day (due to lack of spares or added complications) and this is always really frustrating. These jobs included a leak in the AC system, a fault on the fire alarm sounder wiring and a broken light switch. The AC system involved cutting and grinding out a new pipe connection, cutting new hose and re-fitting the system. The fire sounder wiring fault took a day of fault finding, checking all the fire alarms and bells, and achieved the square root of zero as everything continued to work fine but the fault light always re-illuminated about 30 minutes after resetting the alarms. The faulty light switch involved a 2 hour search for parts that turned up nothing useful and I ended up re-wiring the whole thing with a plug and socket from the lamp itself as I didn't have anything else I could use! 

On the 16^th January I had (another) birthday at sea. But this was different. This was my 30^th birthday.

30 had always been a big milestone for me and I had a “list of things to do before I'm 30” pinned to my wall since the age of 14. As it happens, I have accomplished 80% of the list! Which isn't bad considering; a) what was on there and b) that I have been adding to it in the last couple of years. I spent the evening of the 15^th January wallowing in self pity because, well, I'm not exactly where  social expectations would like me to be at the age of 30. (Sorry mum, still no grandchildren on the horizon)....But then I thought about it and decided that no-one expects to be on a tall ship in the middle of the Southern Ocean, surrounded by Albatrosses on their 30^th birthday! Actually, I'm pretty lucky and I've experienced some amazing things in my life that I wouldn't have missed for the world.

Surrounded by Albatrosses

As it happened, the day itself was really productive in the engineering department (once I got over the embarrassment of the crew singing at me during morning “smoko”). After a morning of “bitty jobs” I successfully re-wired the engine room fire alarm (which had been an issue for a few days) and then I identified the fault in the internal phone system and got that working too....Happy days!

So....here's to the next 30 years!...

 

2 days after my 30th birthday- at the top of the fore mast in the middle of the Southern Ocean doing some more wiring

Life on board can easily become monotonous especially for the watch keepers. (It is less so for us engineers where every day is a new challenge with new broken things and different maintenance to do). However, JST is run for the voyage crew so we have a couple of tricks up our sleeves to add interest and excitement into long voyages. One particularly involving game is the “murder game” where everyone is given a person to murder, a murder weapon (random object) and a place. Unfortunately my schedule meant that I completely failed to carry out a murder before I was killed myself (on the aft staircase, with a hair dryer) but the game played on for a good 5 days before a single victor could be named! On top of this we have had regular sea shanty sessions, the famous “egg drop” competition (where watches have to design a case that they can put an egg in, and throw from the top of the mast as far as possible (within the ship) without breaking the egg) and various card games etc. On top of this we had weekly Sunday services and celebrated every birthday, anniversary, day that ends in “y” that occurred to keep up morale and have an excuse to eat cake! (….So much for my “pre MDS diet”....Ah!) Actually, I was amazed to discover that the two married couples on board both met on previous Nelly voyages (as one couple celebrated their 18^th wedding anniversary and their 20^th anniversary of when they met)....Very cool.

After 35 days at sea we were all settling in for another evening on board Nelly with a quiet anticipation knowing that the next day we would be crossing the infamous Cape Horn when suddenly over the tannoy we hear “Land Ahoy!” For a second nobody moved. Disbelieve. Not wanting to hope. We had all become desperate to feel solid land under our feet and to be let up from the incessant rolling of the Southern Ocean Swells so even a distant sight of land would be amazing....There was a sudden rush up the stairs into the frigid air to follow the line of pointing fingers. The Captain had sighted it first.

I had just got out of the shower but I still raced into the chill to glimpse the most amazing “grey blur” I had ever seen! ….Land....Running along a dirt track...New Zealand seemed like a different lifetime  and even the Chatham Islands a distant memory. Was it really only 35 days ago? 

CAPE HORN!

I woke up on the morning of the 1^st February to find an empty bar and walked up on deck (as I do every morning) to see Cape Horn off our Starboard beam....And, if you believe it, we were completely becalmed! It seemed completely unreal standing in a t-shirt with a cup of tea in hand and staring at the illusive Cape Horn from a Tall Ship that was wallowing on a Southern Ocean that could have been called glassy apart from the long swells that caused Nelly to continue to roll in a lazy manner. 

Nelly´s chart table at Cape Horn

Nelly becalmed at Cape Horn

We took advantage of the calm ocean to carry out a man-over-board drill. It was great to get out in a little boat again and going through the man-over-board routine made me really nostalgic for the RNLI lifeboats that I work on back in the UK. But, it was lovely to be off the ship for a bit (even if it was to get into a smaller boat). We took the opportunity to take some photos of Nelly alongside Cape Horn which have come out really well. Plus it meant that, whilst Marcin (the 2^nd mate) was taking the photos I was able to helm the boat and put her alongside Nelly. 

Me at Cape Horn!

After that I had a real giggle in the afternoon. I had to do a quick repair on the toaster which I tried to rush through before the MOB debrief, but in the end I did the repair half before and half after the meeting so I forgot to tighten a couple of screws which meant that the elements dropped down. So, when I plugged it in at the galley, it shorted and blew up a little. I sighed and took it back to the workshop and thought nothing of it.

Suddenly the Chief comes running up to me as the Cook had reported that his oven was off and there was no water. Then the bosun came running up and said that the aft heads wouldn’t flush …..The Chief and I ran into the engine room to do some head scratching and the Chief noticed that one of the main breakers had switched off on the circuit board so everything was easily reset and worked immediately (much to the relief of the cook who was in the middle of preparing dinner!) It turns out that when the toaster blew up it tripped its little breaker (which it shares with the aft heads sea water pump….go figure) and this then tripped the main breaker on the circuit board (for what ever reason)....*sigh*

Ofcourse all I could think of was that Nelly was saying:

“Well…if the toaster isn't working then I don't see why I should have to do anything!” 

After passing the Cape, the calm seas and fine (if cold) weather continued  for a few days until suddenly we were woken by the Captain announcing on the tannoy “All hands on deck, we need to wear ship after a sudden wind change”. The day then continued as “normal” with various things breaking (washing machine, lamps) and normal maintenance needing to be done (bar stock check, sewage plant cleaning). After lunch Marcin was on watch when a squall suddenly filled in bringing over 30 knots of wind on a fully canvassed Nelly! He quickly called all hands and I followed the on duty watch onto the deck to help take down some sail and reduce the high angle of heel produced by the gail. Whilst still letting go of the main halyard, I heard a tannoy for “engineer to the chart room” and found the engine room alarms sounding for a bilge alarm. I ran down to the engine room to locate the offending bilge and (as usual) found the sail locker alarm going.....*sigh* ….cue bilge diving. 

The Chief joined me as I pulled out numerous ladders and sails to inspect the bilge where, surprise surprise there was no water. Once again, something had shifted in the sail locker during one of the violent rolls and wedged itself under the bilge alarm float. 

Anyway, it was fantastic to be back in “Southern Ocean conditions” as we continued to head North to try and reach the latitude of 50° South. The sunsets were stunning and (whether it was our imagination or not) it seemed to warm up again the further we went. However, the Northerly sail couldn't last as the winds eventually turned on us and we only reached 51° South before having to do a U-turn. We turned in light winds and fired up the engines on the 6^th February to make sure that we made enough speed to get to Ushuaia in time for the pilot. 

It was great to have the engines running again although the excitement was soon lost as the alarms started to reappear and the noise in my little cabin increased 50 fold. The sail down the Beagle Channel was magical. Surrounded by wind capped mountains, green hills and little islands that I have been reading about during my down time on the voyage. How amazing it must have been for the first explorers to suddenly find themselves in this beautiful landscape after the vast expanse and loneliness of the Southern Ocean.

Sailing through the Beagle Channel

We arrived safely in Ushuaia after a difficult berthing was made to look easy by our amazing Skipper. We will be here for a week carrying out well needed maintenance before the month long sail down to the Western Antarctic Peninsula. 

I'm sorry that this blog entry is so long, but there was a lot to say as, well, I just sailed the Southern Ocean and crossed Cape Horn in a tall ship!! :-)

...What a long, strange trip it has been!

www.justgiving.com/tam-at-sea

First night run in Ushuaia

New Zealand Readiness

After an unplanned extra week in the UK trying to sort out my house that was trashed by the tenant, I survived the 2 day flight from the UK over to Auckland via Heathrow and Hong Kong by the grace of a good book, good documentaries and lots of free gin and tonics.

I arrived in Auckland two days before my official “joining day” so I could try to get over some jet lag and catch up with an old friend from my time at Oxford University (Rene). I flew in at 0700hrs local time and Rene picked me up from the airport. She insisted that I stay awake for the entire day and marched me through some of the best sights in Auckland. I was really pleased that she helped me to immediately getting into the new time zone and it was great walking through one of the parks and art museum. We walked up Mount Eden which is one of the volcanoes that rises out of the city of Auckland. From the top you can see other volcanoes rising up like green sea mounts through the grey blanket of the city that stretches from coast to coast. In the evening, we went to see a local Church perform a musical version of “A Christmas Carol” at the theatre in the heart of Auckland's CBD. It was very cleverly produced, with amazing dancers and singers and the only time my jet lag overtook me and I started doing the “nodding-dog” routine was in the moments of darkness between scenes. 

Auckland CBD from Mount Eden

 The next day Rene had to work, but this gave me time to organise the gym equipment that I had posted ahead of me and I got on a local bus with a step machine in one hand and a mini cycling machine in the other and headed to the ship. It was great to see the Lord Nelson again and hugging all the crew I remembered just how much they have become my family.

Before I walked back, I spend 3 ½ hours at the nearby maritime museum where I learned all about Maori boat building, the immigration of early settlers and the science behind the America's Cup boats. The highlight was definitely the exhibition on Sir Peter Blake who had coached the New Zealand sailing team to win and defend the Americas Cup and who went on to become a Pioneer in Environmental and Marine Conservation.

I joined Nelly the next day where I was immediately thrown into the chaos that always occurs during maintenance periods on board. We were incredibly busy in the engineering department. Lots of outside contractors were on board doing big jobs such as changing the fuel lines on the two main engines, renewing the main engine computer control system, fixing the AC unit etc. In the midst of all this there is the routine stuff, minor faults and maintenance jobs that we have to keep chipping away at. This included dealing with a massive hydraulic fuel leak from the forward Capstan that occurred when we had to shift the ship to a nearby mooring. The Capstan is a large winch used to pull in mooring lines and we have three on board, one forward and two aft. When we were tying back up alongside it starting spraying out hydraulic oil all over the deck and I heard a yell off “get the spill get to the fore peak” and legged it in their direction to deal with the damage. It turned out that we had to take the capstan apart and send it to a specialist hydraulics company to stop the leak....not a quick job when the hydraulic lines and painted fast onto the metal Capstan and the the Capstan itself weighs a tonne! 

View along Auckland coast during one of my morning runs

 The voyage crew for STW 6 (Sail The World 6- the voyage around the Southern Ocean to Ushuaia) eventually joined and the next day the enormous food stores order arrived so that it took all of the crew most of the afternoon to get it all on board and stowed away. This stores order included a load of soft drinks that I had to sequester into one of the unused black water tanks under the bar. This involved opening the hatch in the floor of the bar, sliding down into the space, climbing over a pipe to the starboard side, wrenching open the metal hatch to the tank and climbing inside the 2 foot by 1.5 foot opening into the dark tank space so I could pull bags full of drink cans in on top of me and store them “neatly” in the tank....Hot, heavy work, made easier by the grace of the lovely Nelly team.

That night I was lucky enough to meet up with another long lost Kiwi friend who I lived with when I was 18 years old! It was great to catch up over a beer and give a mini tour around Nelly....It gives me comfort to know that even if I haven't seen someone for 11 years, I can still meet up with them and put the worlds to right as if my teenage years were just yesterday! 

Looking back towards the ship and Auckland CBD, 5 miles into a morning run

 In the mean time, the parts that we need to mend the back stay still hadn't arrived. This was a major problem and was the only thing stopping us from leaving Auckland. The back stay is the wire that supports the mast, so we can't sail without it- especially not in weather that we are expecting to see in the Southern Ocean when we get close to Cape Horn. We were all constantly hoping that this equipment was going to turn up, but delay after delay kept occurring and every morning meeting turned into ground hog day as the Captain explained that we would have to remain in Auckland for “one more night” whilst we waited on the back stay....Night mare. However, we were all trying to make the most of being in Auckland and the freedom that comes from being alongside. I enjoyed my ~10 mile morning runs along the coast, night time photography sessions with Marcin (the 2^nd mate) and the nice coffee and sushi bars that could be enjoyed in the evenings. 

Accompanying the second mate (Marcin) on a night filming session

My mother has an expression “just put today down to experience” that basically means: OK, so today lots of things have gone wrong and you've done lots of stupid stuff, but hopefully you have learnt something from it. On Thursday 19^th December, I had one of these days. The morning started like every morning alongside in Auckland. After my morning run and breakfast, we had the morning meeting and I did the daily engineering rounds along with some other fairly routine work (fuel transfer, light switches, fixing leaky radiators etc.). I then climbed onto the galley roof to sort out the fan vent into the hot galley which had been incorrectly installed. This ended up costing me a whole load of skin off my finger as I fought to get the metal sheets into the metal slots....Ouch. The Chief had to leave the ship for most of the afternoon to get parts so I was left with a massive work list that I slowly made my way through. However it seemed that every time I started something, I had to stop for some reason or another, or the job ended up being much more involved that I had anticipated.

For example, one of the jobs was testing the water tight doors. These are big steel doors that you close and open by pumping a hydraulic lever (which is pretty tiring when you have to pump it shut and pump it open). I did the two forward doors before I was reminded that some people were trying to rest after their night watches so I moved to the aft door between the mates cabin and the aft section of the ship and gave the sleeping cook a heart attack as he leapt upstairs thinking it was a fire alarm! (Sorry cookie!)....So I gave up after three doors. I then started to dissemble the holder for the chart room lift remote to find that someone had bent the bolt so I had to hack saw it off in two places before I could take it to the workshop where I discovered that it was going to be a much longer job requiring hack sawing lots of old metal and doing some sort of finishing on it.

In the mean time the Chief returned with the new lamp parts so I started to prepare to climb to the top of the fore mast to replace the broken port side mast head lamp with a new LED lamp. I knew that this would involve; cutting wire, breaking up the old lamp holder, wiring in the new LED lamp and attaching it to the lamp holder so I packed a tool bag full of all the stuff I needed and attached it to my harness along with a radio. However, half way up the mast I realised that the wind had picked up, my fore arms were already hurting from pumping the water tight doors and I was feeling really off balance from my anaemia (fairly standard monthly thing) and the heavy tool bag on my back. This dropped my confidence and made the process a lot slower, but I still managed to get right to the top of the mast where I was faced with the damaged light. To have my head at the height of the masthead light I had one foot in the tiny rope ladder (which tapers off into a size only just big enough for one foot at this height) and one of my arms wrapped around the top of a back stay wire to keep me secure.....This left me with little balance and only one hand for wiring.....Hmmm. I had to give up and climbed back down feeling pretty annoyed that I'd wasted all that time climbing with nothing to show for it but (more) sore arms.

On climbing down I was reminded that I did actually have spare lamps on board so I should have just changed the lamp even if I couldn't replace the whole light for an LED system...Arghh. So, I started to prep to go back up when I remembered that it was my turn to clean the PC (permanent crew) heads (toilets). I did a deep clean on one and had bleached the second one when I walked back in to find the top had blown off the Solway valve at the back of the head so that sea water was gushing up out of the system. I tried to stem the flow with my hands but only succeeded in getting completely soaked, so I legged it outside to grab a wrench to operate the local shut off valve. I ran passed the Medical Purser who looked slightly concerned to see me running past with a massive wrench dripping with sea water. I couldn't hold the water back at the same time as trying to wrench open the access to the local shut off valve so I went back outside again and asked the Bosun to help. She tried to stem the flow whilst I again tried to open the access for the shut off valve and failed- getting wetter by the second. Instead I chose to run around the ship desperately trying to remember where the main Sanny sea water pump shut off valve was....I knew that I saw it every day but completely blanked on where it was (old age creeping in I fear!) I found the Mate and he joined me in rushing around trying to locate the valve until the Chief appeared about 5 minutes later and pointed to the little switch in a hatch that I open every single morning as part of rounds....Arghh! I returned to the heads to find a line of people bailing out with buckets. Incredible! If nothing else, this little exercise illustrates the amazing Nelly team where everybody is always willing to help and we are never too far away from a bucket! Also, I will never forget where that seawater pump shut-off switch is again!

As the evening drew in, I completed the repair on the heads and collapsed in my cabin for 30minutes with a glass of wine. I couldn't believe how exhausted I was! I had vaguely planned to do a 20 mile run after work, but I could barely stand up let alone get up to marathon pace! I managed a little walk down to the shops for some more supplies and to play the piano in the Seafarers Mission, but that was it! ….So much for the glamour of the sea hey?!

That night, the deck department worked late getting the back stay up so that we could leave and start on our epic journey.

We left Auckland on a beautiful sunny morning with clear blue skies and the water as flat as a mill pond. It was great to be on the move again with the wind playing in the rigging. To leave the berth we have to deploy our little boat “the Dotty boat” so that we can leave a mooring party on the show to release the lines when Nelly slips off. The Dotty boat then picks up the mooring party from the shore, comes alongside Nelly and the mooring party climb up the rope ladder. The Dotty boat is then winched on board and swung onto the galley roof where it is stowed. However, this time there was a problem with the winch so the mate, second mate and team of bosun's mates stayed on the roof to try and sort it out.

The next moment a large bang was heard and the Dotty boat had swung vertically on the winch so that her bow was nearly touching the surface of the water and her stern was up at the top of the winch. The Captain called for engines stopped (which I did immediately) and made sure that no-one was hurt. Everything had been completely safe so everything was fine and nothing was even scratched. However, looking back off Nelly's stern the Captain noticed a little red plastic square bobbing off in the distance- a petrol can had fallen out of the boat and was floating in the water.

We treated this as a man-over -board drill and turned Nelly around to retrieve the object whilst the Dotty boat was again lowered into the water. The Captain took Nelly within a few meters of the petrol can and the Dotty boat crew did the rest- a very successful “rescue”!

As well as the man-over-board drill, there are a number of other drills that we have to perform each voyage to ensure that the permanent crew all remain sure of our roles and that the voyage crew know what they need to do in an emergency. One of these is an evacuation drill. We had done one of these alongside in Auckland where we got all the voyage crew to dress in their warm kit and don their immersion suits (as they would in the Southern Ocean in the event of an abandonment). We did another on our second day at sea and I was really impressed with how quickly the crew were able to be ready in all their gear.

It was nice to get back into the “at sea” routine and I managed to start working down my ridiculously long job list. This included finishing manually pumping close and open the remaining 3 water tight doors. Everything worked well and I finished off by making sure all of the moving parts were greased and good to go. The next day the voyage crew had one of their “happy hours” (when they spend an hour cleaning the ship from top to bottom) and one of the over-enthusiastic cleaners decided to clean off all the grease from the water tight doors and proudly announced to me that he had “cleaned off all my mess from the doors”....D'Oh. Actually he was very sweet and it was very funny, but it did mean that I had to spend some time re-greasing all the doors.

Now I am at sea I have started my “deep ocean” phase of my MDS (Marathon des Sables) training which includes stepping on a mini step machine that I brought myself to use in the engine room. I have positioned it on the “Mezzaine level” so that it is stuck on the grating about the port main engine between the main engine exhaust and the boiler. I try to use it every morning and every afternoon before dinner and I sneak into the engine room in my gym kit with my ipod head phones stuck underneath my big green ear defenders and try to balance as the ship rolls from one side to the other and pitches up and down with each passing wave. It's usually around 30 degrees centigrade in the engine room so I soon have sweet pouring down my face and I probably look like a complete idiot....But what's new?

Training for the MDS in the Engine Room

On the third day at sea I managed to step on my little stepping machine for 2hrs 15mins in one day and I was amazed at how much I was sweating- to the point that I felt quite sick of dehydration by the time I got off.....although the cork screw motion of the ship probably didn't help that much either :-S It was a reasonably rough day at sea which made it pretty difficult to balance on the stepper so I had to hold onto the rail on the mezzaine part of the engine room and step with my back and knees constantly slightly bent to take the impact of the large waves and sideways rolls.

We spend three days sailing to Napier so that the Voyage Crew could test out their sea legs and so we could have Christmas day berthed. For me it was particularly enjoyable being in Napier as I was able to get some last minute runs in past beautiful Kiwi fishing villages and along the beautiful volcanic beaches.

View across the wetlands during a morning run in Napier, New Zealand

We had a wonderful Christmas and we made sure that although we couldn't “deck any halls with boughs of Holly” we “'Hollied' the deck with boughs of joy!”. We had carol singing on the fore deck, midnight cake making in the Galley, bucks fizz on Christmas morning with our salmon and scrambled eggs breakfast and Cookie Dave produced an amazing 3 course Christmas dinner for all 47 people on board. Brilliant! There was a lovely atmosphere on board and although we all thought of our loved ones back home, I was grateful for being able to spend Christmas day with the crew who have become my extended family and best friends.

After a last inspection by customs, we cast off for the Chatham Islands on boxing day, where we stopped for 24hours We were obviously quite a sight as we came alongside in strong winds and half of the population (of 200 people) came down to see us. I spent the morning up the top of the main mast changing the rigging light then I joined most of the rest of the crew who had invaded the local hotel to use the wifi! 

Tonight, myself and the Chief Engineer will be doing a BBQ on the quayside which is always good fun for all involved. We hope to be able to stay alongside until tomorrow morning but this berth is quite weather dependent, so if the wind gets up too much, we might have to leave in the night and take to an anchorage.  I'm hoping to be able to do a morning run here before around 6 weeks at sea so fingers crossed the wind is kind tonight and we stay alongside! 

We will have the 32^nd of December (yes, the 32^nd) at sea as we cross the International Date line and work an extra day in 2013 before celebrating the New Year on the other side of the line. When we slip our berth here, it will be for the last time for 6 weeks as we strike out for Argentina via the Southern Ocean, Cape Horn and the Beagle Channel. It will be a tough crossing for everyone (and the ship) so please think of us in the coming weeks as we rock and roll through the Southern Ocean in our tall ship.

Please keep me training as we sail on into the New Year and donate at: www.justgiving.co.uk/Tam-at-sea

See you in 2014!