Friday, 11 April 2014

Friday 11th April 2014

WEATHER CONDITIONS: Overcast, winds averaging 20 knots

SEA CONDITIONS: 1 - 2 m westerly swell

ICE CONDITIONS: Odd large ice berg and small bergie bits

LATITUDE: 61.53S LONGITUDE: 75.53E

HEADING: 72 degrees

SPEED: 16 knots

DISTANCE COVERED LAST 24 HOURS: 296nm

DISTANCE TO GO: 2777nm

AIR TEMPERATURE: -7c

SEA TEMPERATURE: -0.3c

DEPTH: 2390m

It is notably warmer on board now the outside temperature has changed from minus twenty to minus seven, although my doona insulation in my porthole was iced onto the glass this morning and there was ice all around the porthole, so it is still quite cool.

I had a lazy morning and I finished reading my book in bed, then I got up for a shower and spent a couple of hours doing some research on my computer. After lunch I went up onto the bridge just at the right time to see a huge ice berg floating past. I couldn't help thinking this would probably be the last ice berg I will ever see.

Weather conditions have been rather favorable and we are taking full advantage of this with the ship running both engines to give us maximum speed at around 16 knots. Conditions are expected to deteriorate during the night though, and whilst we would slow down at night any way at these latitudes due to potential icebergs, the wind is forecast to swing round onto the nose, so that will slow us down with an expected swell of six to eight meters. If we get these rough conditions tonight I would expect half the people will be sea sick tomorrow.

Radio conditions today were very poor and I couldn't get anybody to answer my call. We crossed our first time zone last night and we had to put our clocks forward an hour. After dinner Luc and I watched a few documentaries down in what used to be the old bar that has now been ripped out.




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