10-Feb Storm

10-Feb Storm

The day started with a furious storm - 50-knot winds and enormous seas, 8-metre high waves. This one sprung up out of nowhere. The snow doesn’t fall on our deck but blows horizontal looking for a vertical surface to stick to. Storms come through very fast in this part, the storm factory of the south. And this is supposed to be the more sheltered area of the Ross Sea, sheltered by the pack ice barrier. Not much vcan be done today by anybody and I wonder how many weather down times we might end up getting on this voyage.
I see a copy of the weather fax and see a whole string of cyclones on their way from the west en route to hit us - five in fact. What is interesting is that they are all small but very powerful. They can hit you suddenly and can often have passed over the next day. But yesterday was a good day. In fact we had the most sunshine hours this trip, probably about four hours, all at the end of the day.