S54 49 W0<\/p>\n
Pitching in a sea of total blackness, I could feel the waves rolling
\naround me.\u00c2\u00a0 The rhythmic creaking of my tired body ebbed and flowed with
\nthe waters, sounds far distant on the surface above.\u00c2\u00a0 Light appeared,
\ndeep blue, impossibly far but approaching at inconceivable speed, and
\nthen fresh cold air billowed upon me and I sucked it deep into my
\nstarved lungs.\u00c2\u00a0 Eyes opening, curtain of the bunk blowing open; the wind
\nhad shifted and the pre-dawn light was blowing snow and air at 1.5
\ndegrees through the open porthole.\u00c2\u00a0 We had come through the night, and
\nalthough the new day was still deep blue and grey it was filled with
\nfresh promise.<\/p>\n
The ice-berg belt did not disappoint; rather, it has been kind.\u00c2\u00a0 This
\nmorning when I had showered and made my tour of the outdoor decks on my
\nway to the bridge there was a garden of ice-bergs to be seen around us,
\npassing slowly as we continue inexorably northward.\u00c2\u00a0 The sea was more
\nfriendly than anticipated, with only 3m swells through the day.\u00c2\u00a0 Still,
\nthis was enough to make a few more passengers green around the gills,
\nand the morning clinic was quite busy.\u00c2\u00a0 Between diagnoses of
\nmotion-sickness I managed to fit in two ENT cases, surgical excision of
\nan irritating skin lesion, a few of the usual back and limb aches that
\nplague the ship’s crew, and do some good dental work including a
\nfilling.\u00c2\u00a0 By the time this was all completed and my notes written, it
\nwas already time for lunch, and then I succumbed to my postprandial
\nsomnolence with a brief nap.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a hard life, aboard ship \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n
In the mid-afternoon a watery beam of sunlight tried valiantly to warm
\nthe ship, but on the monkey-deck I was still subjected to blowing
\nsnowflakes through which Wandering and Sooty Albatrosses skimmed over
\nthe waves.\u00c2\u00a0 Retreating with my laptop to a sunny corner of the bridge, I
\ntried to work on the final\u00c2\u00a0 expedition reports, but the cheerful banter
\nof the chief mate and both captains (we have both a Master and an Ice
\nPilot aboard on this voyage, both of whom have captained the vessel on
\nmany occasions) was not very successful in getting work done.\u00c2\u00a0 Around
\n1600 the mate announced in her cheerful manner from the radar display
\nthat an ice-berg dead ahead was bearing down southward on our course at
\n15 knots.\u00c2\u00a0 Ice-bergs, of course, are not well known to manage this type
\nof speed, and we quickly identified the signal to come from another
\nAntarctic ship, the\u00c2\u00a0 Akademik Federov.\u00c2\u00a0 We learnt over the radio that
\nshe is en-route to Antarctica with a cargo of supplies for Troll and
\nNovolazarevskaya, hurrying south before the ice closes in.\u00c2\u00a0 Similar in
\nbuild and capability to the Agulhas (although slightly larger and
\nfaster), she cut an impressive profile passing a mile abeam against a
\nbackdrop of ice-bergs lit in the afternoon light.<\/p>\n
My afternoon clinic was no less busy than the morning, including chronic
\ndisease follow-up and even an antenatal visit.\u00c2\u00a0 In total, I devote about
\n4 hours a day to clinical work, and a little more to other medical work
\nfor the ship – stock-taking, checking equipment, ordering new supplies,
\nand training the crew – the idea being to take advantage of the times
\nthat a doctor is onboard.\u00c2\u00a0 It is hardly demanding, but rather pleasantly
\nstimulating and certainly helps to prevent the boredom I see setting in
\namongst my team-mates who have now caught up on sleep and are finding
\nthe days long and empty.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow is forecast to be a little rougher – 4-5m swells and 40 knot
\nwinds – but then it should improve again.\u00c2\u00a0 Very tentatively, if the
\nweather continues to be so kind, we may arrive in Cape Town ahead of
\nschedule… but the rest of the Fifties and all of the Forties lie
\nahead, and such predictions are an open invitation to Nature to reminds
\nus of her supremacy,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
S54 49 W0 Pitching in a sea of total blackness, I could feel the waves rolling around me.\u00c2\u00a0 The rhythmic creaking of my tired body ebbed and flowed with the waters, sounds far distant on the surface above.\u00c2\u00a0 Light appeared, deep blue, impossibly far but approaching at inconceivable speed, and then fresh cold air billowed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/doctorross.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/doctorross.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/doctorross.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doctorross.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doctorross.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=754"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/doctorross.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":755,"href":"https:\/\/doctorross.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754\/revisions\/755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/doctorross.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doctorross.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doctorross.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}