Towards Antarctica

We hit the ocean swells again after leaving South Georgia. And again I
got knocked out flat with seasickness. Scopolamin patch to no avail; I
have had another 36 hours doing nothing but to lie as still as possible.

It's a bit of comfort, though, that many of the other passengers are
going through the same. I may be a chicken, but not the only chicken...
:-)

By the time of posting, we have covered most of the distance between
South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula. We are currently heading for
Elephant Island, but with little hope of actually getting ashore
bedcause of the sea ice. We have the huge advantage of having another
ship ahead of us, that can report on ice conditions before we get there.

Even if we don't make a landing on the island, there's a good chance of
seeing whales along the edge of the ice, so we keep our fingers crossed
for another good nature experience.

During a recap and debrief of our days at South Georgia, we learned that
our luck with the weather is almost unprecedented. We made landings at a
total of 9 sites; and one of the guides even got a first-time landing on
one of the more exclusive sites; featuring Macaroni Penguins, among
other things.

As of now, the ocean swells have either dampened down, or alternatively,
my brain has been sufficiently dampened down not to notice. Anyways,
there are many people out on deck photographing icebergs while hoping to
catch a glimpse of a whale or two.

I can't wait to start posting images from this trip. Hopefully I can
convey some of the sense of wonder from being here.

Oh, and someone mentioned in the passing that this is the very ship that
Michael Reichmann from the Luminous Landscape website travelled on a
couple of years ago. I relay this information just to give you a hint of
how used they are to accommodate for the wishes of photographers.
Yesterday we got a good example of their understanding for our desires
when they turned the ship to follow a group of whales for a while, in
hope of getting some good shots. The whales however, were busy and hard
to track, so eventually we gave up. But it was very kind of the captain
to try anyway.

More later, now I wish to join my fellow passengers on deck, in case
something interesting turns up.