From mail at doctorross.co.za Thu Feb 26 16:24:33 2009 From: mail at doctorross.co.za (mail at doctorross.co.za) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:24:33 +0200 Subject: Ross's update Message-ID: <302681ee0902260624y2a7781f1ra32768aeb2e2a010@mail.gmail.com> Hi Everyone! Ross left on Saturday last week, and he will be arriving next week Thursday (8th). This is the third entry he has emailed me. I recommend you go to the blog and read about his final days and his leaving Antarctica. Regards Steve Hofmeyr P.S. For family only, there will be drinks on one of the evening's after he gets back, keep an ear to facebook and your email for the date. Through the 'berg belt S54 49 W0 Pitching in a sea of total blackness, I could feel the waves rolling around me. The rhythmic creaking of my tired body ebbed and flowed with the waters, sounds far distant on the surface above. Light appeared, deep blue, impossibly far but approaching at inconceivable speed, and then fresh cold air billowed upon me and I sucked it deep into my starved lungs. Eyes opening, curtain of the bunk blowing open; the wind had shifted and the pre-dawn light was blowing snow and air at 1.5 degrees through the open porthole. We had come through the night, and although the new day was still deep blue and grey it was filled with fresh promise. The ice-berg belt did not disappoint; rather, it has been kind. This morning when I had showered and made my tour of the outdoor decks on my way to the bridge there was a garden of ice-bergs to be seen around us, passing slowly as we continue inexorably northward. The sea was more friendly than anticipated, with only 3m swells through the day. Still, this was enough to make a few more passengers green around the gills, and the morning clinic was quite busy. Between diagnoses of motion-sickness I managed to fit in two ENT cases, surgical excision of an irritating skin lesion, a few of the usual back and limb aches that plague the ship's crew, and do some good dental work including a filling. By the time this was all completed and my notes written, it was already time for lunch, and then I succumbed to my postprandial somnolence with a brief nap. It's a hard life, aboard ship ;) In the mid-afternoon a watery beam of sunlight tried valiantly to warm the ship, but on the monkey-deck I was still subjected to blowing snowflakes through which Wandering and Sooty Albatrosses skimmed over the waves. Retreating with my laptop to a sunny corner of the bridge, I tried to work on the final expedition reports, but the cheerful banter of the chief mate and both captains (we have both a Master and an Ice Pilot aboard on this voyage, both of whom have captained the vessel on many occasions) was not very successful in getting work done. Around 1600 the mate announced in her cheerful manner from the radar display that an ice-berg dead ahead was bearing down southward on our course at 15 knots. Ice-bergs, of course, are not well known to manage this type of speed, and we quickly identified the signal to come from another Antarctic ship, the Akademik Federov. We learnt over the radio that she is en-route to Antarctica with a cargo of supplies for Troll and Novolazarevskaya, hurrying south before the ice closes in. Similar in build and capability to the Agulhas (although slightly larger and faster), she cut an impressive profile passing a mile abeam against a backdrop of ice-bergs lit in the afternoon light. My afternoon clinic was no less busy than the morning, including chronic disease follow-up and even an antenatal visit. In total, I devote about 4 hours a day to clinical work, and a little more to other medical work for the ship - stock-taking, checking equipment, ordering new supplies, and training the crew - the idea being to take advantage of the times that a doctor is onboard. It is hardly demanding, but rather pleasantly stimulating and certainly helps to prevent the boredom I see setting in amongst my team-mates who have now caught up on sleep and are finding the days long and empty. Tomorrow is forecast to be a little rougher - 4-5m swells and 40 knot winds - but then it should improve again. Very tentatively, if the weather continues to be so kind, we may arrive in Cape Town ahead of schedule... but the rest of the Fifties and all of the Forties lie ahead, and such predictions are an open invitation to Nature to reminds us of her supremacy, -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: