Yesterday lunchtime an Albatross flew past the dining room window, I remember reading and seeing pictures of these creatures when I was a kid, I was amazed that something resembling a boring seagull could have a wingspan of up to 4 metres and live to be as old as 77. Never the less, they were here, and in numbers including a variety of different types as our ship continued on its voyage to the last continent on earth.

We’ve been at sea for almost 48 hours now, the worst of the weather, thankfully, behind us. It’s just over a two day voyage from Ushuaia at the bottom of South America to the start of the Antarctic continent, but this voyage can be a tricky one, where the Pacific and Atlantic oceans meet is notoriously the roughest stretch of water in the world, The Drake Passage, named after our fellow countryman, Sir Francis Drake, who drifted off course some 400 years ago and accidentally proved that South America wasn’t indeed attached to a fabled southern continent.

According to our Captain, Captain Skog, Sir Francis has been very gentle with us these last few days, and the waters have seen much fiercer times. But that doesn’t mean to say that there haven’t been high tales of Intestinal Pyrotechnics among the passengers. Of which, of course I have one, but for now, back to Captain Skog…

There must be some kind of Captain’s guide book that states that all Ships Captains should be rather large rotund gentlemen, with white hair and a full white beard. I’m sure next to this guideline is a illustrative example cut out of a packet of Birds-Eye Fish Fingers. Because indeed, Captain Skog looks just like Captain Birds-Eye, I wouldn’t have it any other way, the journey wouldn’t be nearly as fun without our stereotype Captain and his first mate, also with white beard, and usually found smoking cherry tobacco on the ships stern.

As we left port on Sunday 19th November 2006, we navigated the Beagle Channel while we were served a 4 course meal in the ships rather splendid dining room. After exploring the ship with some of our fellow passengers, we visited the Bridge and had a poke about with some of the radar equipment and iceberg spotting gizmos. There’s a really cool “Open Bridge� policy on The Dream (as we call her, short for Antarctic Dream) which means you’re welcome to go and spend time there anytime of the day or night. After our little visit to the bridge we decided we’d better turn in and try and get some sleep before Sir. Drake would wake us early in the morning.

Our quarters are situated on the lower deck, a bit like where all the paupers lived on the Titanic; you know the bit with the caged doors in the movie. There are some very lovely rooms elsewhere on the ship, but no chance of an upgrade unfortunately! However our cabin is really quite good, like a miniature posh hotel. We have twin beds, with a wardrobe, desk and chair, 2 port hole windows, an LCD TV which has 4 channels with DVD movies being pumped around the ship, as well as 1 documentary channel all about Antarctica, which really gets you in the mood. Our small bathroom is well equipped with a lovely hot shower and bathroom cabinet which dolly quickly filled with all our items, which were soon to move about and all fall out the minute you opened it in the morning.

Our first night was rather a bumpy one, and we knew we’d hit Drakes Passage just after midnight. We didn’t get much sleep as The Dream rocked and rolled all over the place. Down here we only have 4 hours of darkness a night and by 3.30am the sun was shining through our porthole windows and we woke to the sound of icy waves crashing against The Dreams hull. I think I did get another hour or so after that, and we struggled to get out of bed and get to breakfast before it finished. When we arrived in the dining room, it was empty and a lecture had already started in the ships conference room on the lower deck. I instantly thought that we were last up, and everyone was waiting for us downstairs. But it couldn’t have been further from the truth. The Dream holds 84 passengers, but on this expedition there are only 30. On that first morning a grand total of 5 people turned up for breakfast, clearly most of them feeling the effects of 12 hours in Drakes Passage.

We ate breakfast to the rolling of the boat, tea cups sliding all over the place and Dolly’s breakfast sliding away from her and becoming my breakfast, that kind of thing. A short while later and I began to take a turn for the worse. On the way down to the lecture hall I suddenly had a distress call from deep within my bowls, “MAYDAY MAYDAY� HMS Breakfast and her crew were in trouble, and there was only one way to save them. I had to dash back to our cabin, staggering from left to right down the corridor like a wino on a waltzer, fling open the bathroom door, and quickly relieved Captain Cornflake, and crew, of their digestive duties.

The rest of the day was pretty much a right off, and we did spend most of it in bed catching up on sleep when Sir Francis would take a break and calm down for an hour or two. By dinner time he was right back into the swing of things though, and the “Gentle Rolling� (nice one Skoggy) of the ship had made sure that only 12 passengers turned up for dinner. This time it was Dolly’s turn for the worse, and she remained in bed from 5pm right through to the next day, managing to keep her intestines in order most skillfully. I did turn up for dinner, but after the starter I too had to give in and call it a night, and was in bed myself by 7pm.

Thankfully Last night’s sleep was much better, we got a lot more shut eye and Drake’s Passage had calmed down a lot. We managed Breakfast this morning with no distress calls and we even went to a lecture on the Wildlife of Antarctica. Now it’s almost 3pm and over the PA system Captain Skog estimates we’ll be within the safe waters of the South Shetland Islands within the next few hours, which is where the real adventure begins. Click Here for Day 4

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