Water, water every where…. I shot the albatross

Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, I remember learning it at high school, absolutely loving its tale of mishap on the high seas. Those lines “Water, water, everywhere Nor any drop to drink” sprung easily to mind on our journey to South Georgia. In hindsight it would have been fun to recite it on one of our social gatherings in the bar.

We had, along with the albatross many a bird following us all along the voyage. I like the idea that one day I’ll be a bird expert, but it is just not going to happen; rather like being a fungi, flower or tree, photographer or linguist – ‘gunna’ is my first name. Oh well, like my overall love of nature, birds are part of that love. I don’t have the appropriate firepower in my camera arsenal, so my paddling and cell mate on board – George – and a real bird ‘spert has lent me a couple of pics. George lives not too far from me, so hopefully I’ll be able to catch up and go for a few paddles with the sea kayak.

We had two days of voyage, but where did they go ? They were filled with a special South Georgia government briefing video, another vacuuming of our clothes. We learnt that South Georgia s very strict on hygiene, no bags or food is to be left anywhere (to avoid rats and insects), boots and clothes are to carefully inspected for seeds. Rats have been successfully eliminated from the islands. As an aside I’m happy to note that rodent eradication is going to happen in Lord Howe Island (see link) – here is hoping it’s also successful.

Several lectures of different topics of interest eg. different types of Antarctic ice, early explorers and the whaling industry are conducted by Steve and Gary and we see some interesting movies. I missed a couple unfortunately as I tend to embarrassingly fall asleep due to darkened room and rolling motion.

The photographers were at it carefully organising and editing their photos and I updated my blog notes. As well, a few board games and cards went down a treat. I introduced the Nepalese game of dhumbal and politely titled game of shithead, both of which proved popular (click on links to get rules).

I’ve learned a few things about photographs, and have been successful at resurrecting a few overexposed shots or poorly composed ones. One day I might get the Adobe Lightroom program and go further – but that’s probably another addition to my ‘gunna’ book. I am glad I purchased a Microsoft ‘Surface’ pad/laptop computer, it served well for me to check the photos and update notes.

Here is one of my efforts using the simple Windows photo program to crop and adjust a swimming bird: original, note how the water is over exposed.

A bit of light adjustment – brightness, contrast, gamma and cropping becomes:

We are all getting to know each other and learn about various interests and careers. Some passengers have travelled with Aurora a few times – my paddling buddy David has been on this expedition twice ! An doctor from Canada (who celebrated his wedding anniversary on this trip) has proudly photographed a snow leopard in India and now his brother is off in a couple of months in an endeavour to do the same !

One of the passengers – Ian – was a navigator in a fighter plane, keen photographer and interested in the changes if any of the Falklands having had a tour of duty there. It was fun to learn of people’s occupations and their travelling journeys. Some have been on this trip twice and visited the northern arctic waters. The staff were a mixture of people from Russia and the Philippines, the are all friendly and conversational.

The people doing the special photography option have traveled with Chris Bray on quite a few of his and his wife’s excursions all over the world, and I can see why; they have some very interesting trips. He and his wife are starting up an ecolodge at Christmas Island too (Swell Lodge).

Doctor Peter checks in each morning to see if any of us is suffering some sort of malaise: I cannot understand why he does not lend a sympathetic ear for my heart palpitations on the right side of my chest, then someone pointed out I need to relocate the location of my pains – shucks !

There is a bit of assistance should the need arise with paper bags provided in case of emergency:

I have been keeping in touch with my wife with another new toy purchased for this trip; an Garmin InReach tracker. The ship itself offers a satellite phone & email service and probably cheaper than the Inreach (if I kept the calls brief and emails to text only), but I bought it for the many rovings that I do in remote areas. The device worked well with its messaging and Caroline’s responses were received quickly – if she was awake of course ! It has a built in map, but somehow I failed to download it properly when I was in Melbourne so that did not show, mind you the screen is quite small so I’ll stick to a paper version when in need of navigation. When I get home I will sell the Spot Tracker as it is a much better product.

Claim to fame was for Gary our naturalist and his involvement with the movie Happy Feet. He provided expert guidance for the penguin animations and habits. Aurora expeditions also provided two expeditions for the film crew to give them a greater understanding. Our film view tonight of course was Happy Feet. With this current experience with Antarctica and the penguins and elephant seals as well as the defunct whaling station in Deception bay we saw how well Happy Feet matched the actual scenes and antics of the animals. Watching Happy Feet whilst travelling in Antarctica and visiting the subjects of the film ie penguins and seals makes you realise the amount of effort that went into the production of the film to make it into a realistic animated copy of the habits of the animals and their habitat.

At lunch I was talking to Robyn and I was suffering a dejavu moment when she started talking about this voice operation that she had to fix a rare condition called spasmodic dysphonia where she near lost her voice. This operation involve transferring her swallowing muscles to her larynx. I had heard only a couple of weeks ago on a podcast from ABC conversations (“The Antarctic voyage which helped end a decade of silence” 14 Sep 2017). Robyn also has a very interesting blog at https://writingthewild.net/ .