February 19, 2011

This morning I awoke to howling winds just outside my porthole. The gusts were so powerful, they seemed to seep right through the glass. I listened for a while, still lulled in and out of sleep by the rocking of the ship. 

When I went to bed last night we had pulled in close to Elephant Island, seeking shelter from a storm brewing in the Drake Passage. The winds were blowing 60 knots.  But judging by how loud they had become, I knew things had gotten worse overnight. 

Suddenly I heard screeching, rattling and loud crashing on the deck above me (which is the outside deck behind the wheelhouse). I clambered out of bed and up to the wheelhouse to find that winds had reached 136 knots! The last big gust had blown our big radar right off the boat and made our huge gearboxes dance on the back deck. 

Hiding out behind Elephant Island helped in terms of protecting us from the big waves and winds of the storm in the Drake, but sitting next to a glacier covered island left us vulnerable to fierce katabatic winds that race down the glaciers out across the water. 

The winds are breathtaking. You can actually watch them surge towards the boat, driving spray 200 feet in the air. Then the sound of straining steel as they scream past the boat.  We see nothing in these moments as spray encloses us in a complete white out.  

In the midst of all this, we spot whale blows all around us and even the occasional seal or penguin peering up at our ship (their gaze seems to suggest that our boat is so out of place down here).

Meanwhile, I’ve just finished reading Endurance, the story of the disastrous Shackleton expedition in the early 1900s. His team attempted to complete the first Transantarctic expedition but within months they were stuck in the Weddell Sea’s pack ice. Eventually their ship was crushed, leaving them to overwinter on the ice. In the spring as the ice broke up, they were forced to sail their tiny lifeboats to Elephant Island. There some of the men made a rustic camp as one boat went on to South Georgia (which had an active whaling station) seeking rescue. They made the journey across hundreds of miles of the most treacherous seas on Earth in a 22-foot open boat bearing nothing but sails and oars. Incredibly nobody died by land or sea despite being stranded for 17 months.  The story is an amazing testament to what humans can endure.  Their innovation and will to survive was truly remarkable.


Now, I am in the same treacherous waters, but on a strong steel boat with a solid diesel engine. We have advanced navigational equipment (minus our good radar), lots of food, and all our creature comforts. I wonder how our crew would fare if we were dealt the same fate.  These days my skills consist of writing, media production, some lab work and data analysis.  Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time in the field, including leading wilderness trips for up to a month at a time, but I wonder would I have what it takes to survive out here??  Would any of us?