11-Feb After the Storm & On With The Survey

11-Feb After the Storm & On With The Survey

We have just come through the worst of a short and sharp but fairly major storm that struck us without warning yesterday. Although the fury of the snow storm has now passed, we are still rolling around crazily in the storm swell. It is still snowing and the decks and machinery are now almost completely covered with snow. Regardless - the crew and scientists are back on deck, into swing of the survey and carrying on with what they are here for. Midwater sampling trawl goes out and then hauled back in again under the careful and orchestrated direction of the bosun. The crew work hard, they seem to be constantly at it during their 12 hour swings and out in all kinds of weather, rather them than me. I hope we don’t get too many of these storms, as it would account for a good deal of unproductive downtime - not good for our mission.

Boy is it cold outside, a few more repairs to be carried out on deck for Lindsay and I. I’d better get my long johns back on, I think. A busy day for us engineers today as well today - some equipment requiring repairs as a result of the rough weather and a few more breakdowns to attend to today - trawls and winches to fix

I am now the proud owner of my first piece of Antarctic real estate - my own prehistoric Antarctic rock. However it just looks like any other rock though.

We are about 30 miles off the Sub Antarctic Mountain range but can’t see a dicky bird yet. Hopefully in a day or two we will get a bit closer, I hope. I want to start painting the mountains and sea.