The waiting game continues
With limited internet on board TinTin sessions are still strong
“Fifty is the new twenty” says John, nonchalantly, looking at the masthead wind speed as another gust rocks the boat in Right Whale Bay. As Captain Haddock would have said to Tintin had they been on board, this was “a mere draught.” Last night there was much more excitement as the gusts shot up into the sixties and the tea mugs slid across the table. (No spills amazingly.) The excitement was later tinged with disappointment: Amundsen had recorded a gust speed of 71.9 knots earlier and we wanted to trump it. Amundsen then posted an amusing video of their crew supposedly crawling along the foredeck in a gust. Hamish – “never let the truth get in the way of a good story” – sent out a staged video of Steve showing a lightning reaction to catch a water bottle sliding across Vinson’s saloon table. Symptoms of cabin fever?
The gusts were less entertaining for the crew. As pizza (Jerome’s creation) was served for dinner, a loud bang sent them all up the companionway. The ‘snubber’ on the starboard side had broken. In driving snow they went onto the foredeck to replace it. (They seem to conduct these manoeuvres in Crocs and with bare hands. Perhaps it is good to keep some gear in reserve in case conditions get worse.) But with the gusts continuing and another gale forecast for the early hours they decided an anchor watch was needed. This was reassuring for us in our bunks. The anchor didn’t drag.
A true act of faith, Luca cutting Melissas’s hair
As we wait out yet another day of bad weather, the little jobs are getting done. The pilot house turned hair salon as Melissa had her hair cut by Luca. Tres chic. Zu, under direction from Lenny, sewed webbing onto a bag so he can store his ski skins on the outside of his rucksack. Kenneth has sorted out a problem with Lara’s skin-to-ski attachment. He is our cord and plaiting maestro. Skip and Steve have got out laminated maps of the Shackleton traverse which might make pretentious place mats back home. They are discussing, yet again, the need to put various accoutrements in our food bags for the traverse. I’m hoping that the parmesan cheese is a given.
Jerome giving the expert cut for yet another delicious mutton dinner
Skip’s bread and Kenneth’s resto
John’s glacier ice for an aperitif
In another couple of days we will have the entertainment of seeing the stiches come out of Lenny’s hand. She was drying up the dishes on our first night in Grytviken, not long after we had rafted alongside Amundsen. She tried to catch a falling china plate but it broke over a rail, flipped over and neatly sliced open the back of her hand. John, who has done plenty of emergency medicine courses and even put them into effect by working with paramedics on ambulances in Cape Town, took charge. Stitches were needed. He could do them. However, someone realised that Mark, on Amundsen, is a retired vet and had probably worked on some less obliging – and possibly more ‘precious’ – patients than Lenny. He was summoned from his after dinner cups next door. John provided light, local anaesthetic and a needle. Mark set to it, with a reassuring professionalism some doctors could emulate. I don’t know if it was morbid fascination or a desire to learn but we all craned and stretched to watch the proceedings. Jennifer, on Amundsen, thought the scene resembled a well-known painting.
Lenny getting her hand stitched
‘An Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump’ by Joseph Wright of Derby 1768.
Like everyone we have been discussing Artificial Intelligence and what jobs it will capture from humans. Sail boat captains look secure, we thought. Cooks? We wondered whether robotic chefs could force their way into the galley, one day, like we have seen in Wallace and Gromit. Blog writers? Some of the youth on board – recent graduates - took the view that AI could not only write a blog but do it better than us. They may be right.
At last the weather has changed and we are motoring round to King Haakon Bay on a flat sea and with good visibility. This time tomorrow we should be on the traverse at last.
Frank Macdermot
