Post the Forty-Second

I'm sharing a cabin with the two meteorological forecasters, and I have to say that they've not been doing a very good job of it.


Their forecasts have been accurate enough.  Oh, sure.  Very accurate, in fact.  There are no complaints there.  No indeed.  It's just that they keep forecasting crap weather.  If they keep this up I will have to put tobasco sauce in their tea or something.

As I write this we have been at sea for four (4) nights, and every single one of them has been wretched.  True, we have not been treated to the most 'exciting' weather that the Great Southern Ocean has on offer, but it has been sufficiently 'exciting' to make the going quite uncomfortable.

Indeed many of my fellow travellers have found it so uncomfortable as to be 'uncomfortable' into the little bags provided for the purpose.

So, Tim and Graham:  pick up your act!  Forecast us some smooth going, please.  (Or, if you can't manage that, forecast some spectacular seas so I can photograph and video water breaking over the bow.)

The first night out saw the wind accompanied by snow.  Quite a lot of snow, in fact.  The wind blew most of it away again before it could aggregate on the deck, which is a shame.  Not all of it, though.  Here the helideck is wearing a veil of white.

It was treacherous to walk on, too.  As I learned to my cost.

 The fo'c'sle (i.e. the front bit of the deck) tells a slightly different story.  No snow here.  Rather the bow is decorated in ice formed by frozen sea spray.

There's nowt as queer as fo'c'sle.

 Looks like a very pleasant place to be, don't you think?  Just the spot to relax in a deck chair with a cocktail, no?  And if you didn't like the position of your deck chair you need only wait a few seconds, and you'd be in an entirely different part of the deck.  Or not on the deck at all.  Or even on the ship.

Ah, the delights of cruising the Southern Ocean.

In fact the entire foredeck and cargo area had been given the same treatment.

I took this photo while I was chillin' on the monkey deck.  Literally.

A couple of those containers are 'reefers' (which is slang for 'refrigerated containers').  Designed to keep things cold.

Irony.  It's ironic sometimes.


On the second day out we were treated to a bit of extra-curricular excitement.  We'd been directed to visit the area of BANZARE Bank; an undersea mountain which attracts a lot of marine life, and is therefore a very rich fishing ground.  Evidently this area sits within Australia's exclusive economic zone (or EEZ, for those of you fond of acronyms and abbreviations).  The Aurora had been directed there to investigate whether any extra-legal fishing activity was taking place.

Now I have insufficient knowledge either of the legal basis of fishing in the area, or of what authority either the Australian Govt (in general) or the Aurora Australis (in particular) has to be able to give a comprehensive description of what was going on here.

I was an ignorant observer, and I remain an ignorant observer.  Ignorance is bliss, evidently, which would explain the vapid grin I walk around with each day.


Anyway soon enough a vessel appeared on the radar, and the Aurora began to approach.  Initially the other vessel sought to avoid us by motoring away - I suppose they were spooked by the approach of a big orange official-looking ship filled with big orange official-looking awkward questions.

However they were not evidently fast enough to escape the Aurora - which came as something of a shock to me - so they cut their engines and we came alongside.

This couldn't outrun the Aurora.  Weak!

This apparently is a longliner - a fishing vessel which uses extremely long fishing lines covered in baited hooks.  Very effective at catching fast predatory fish (such as the patagonian toothfish), and unfortunately also very good at catching albatrosses and other seabirds that try to take the baits.  Which is quite a concern when I saw the clouds of seabirds surrounding it.

If they had been conducting any fishing activity when we appeared then they had ceased it and stowed all of their equipment before we were in visual range.

In fact you'd think it was a ghost ship.  When we pulled alongside there was no-one to be seen.  Anywhere.

Modern day Marie Celeste.

I heard (second hand) that all that we were authorised to do was have the Voyage Leader ask them certain questions on the radio.  It would seem that all that their master was authorised to do was to evade questions on the radio.  And to lose the ability to understand English when the questions became difficult to evade.  (On the radio).

And that was it.  The questions were officially asked, and officially ignored.  And that ended the exchange.  Some official photos were taken though, although for what purpose I can't say.

And plenty of unofficial photos were taken too, I might add.

Unofficial, by thunder.

The activity did cause quite a stir amongst the expeditioners, though.  Never had I seen the bridge quite so populated.

This was the most interesting thing that had happened for 5 days.  Seriously!

It was all too exciting for Swim-Swim, though, who insisted that he join in the brouhaha.  And Tom was only too happy to oblige him.

Happy to oblige.

Helen was, however, not quite so happy...

Not so happy.

As you can see it has been quite an uneventful trip to date.  Five days at sea, and this is all I can report upon.

There was a karaoke night in the mess on one of the nights, but no level of devotion to providing material for this blog would induce me to sit through that.  Nuh uh.  I'm sorry, but I just do not have that level of intestinal fortitude.

Space left for photo of karaoke night.  Destined to remain a blank space.

So you'll just have to imagine what that was like.  I'd prefer not to, however.