Death by thousand needles!

An exciting day awaits us today. We are planning to go on land today for the first time since we left Ushuaia and visit Robert Swan and his team at the E-Base. We are not visiting mainland Antarctica, but an island within the continental boundary. Exciting, nonetheless!

Soon after breakfast and a review meeting, we got suited up for the trip ashore. The seas are still rough, it is windy and it is snowing hard. Temperature outside is about -18C. I have about four layers of clothing on, along with my water proof pants and jacket on the outside. I got a full set of spare in my backpack just incase I get wet. We get our safety training for survival in the chilly waters from one of the team leaders – “Jumper” -- who is part of the British Special Forces. If you are a POB (Person Overboard) during the trip from the ship to land on a zodiac (motorized rubber craft that seats about 10 people) we are instructed to release our life jacket by pulling the release string and fold our hands across the chest to minimize heat loss (rather than flapping around in the water). Very interesting stuff!

After half of our team were on shore aboard the zodiacs (stored in the back of our ship and put into sea by an onboard crane), the sea got too rough for anymore trips to the shore. The wind picked up to 40 knots and the waves were over 2 meters high. Welcome to Antarctica weather – channel 5 meteorologist’s worst nightmare! They almost cancelled our trip ashore. After a two hour wait, at which point we were all at the peak of cabin fever and ever close to full fledged mutiny on the ship, the sea calmed down just enough to get the rest of the team to the shore. What great timing!

Even then the wind was still ferocious. I am not sure if the snow was still falling or the wind was picking up the dry powder off the floor and throwing it all around. It is a total white out around us. In the strong winds the snow was being thrown around and at you. Any exposed body parts, especially the face, felt like being hit with thousand needles. I put on my ski goggles, my full cover head cover, another winter hat, two pairs of gloves and still felt the cold get through to you.

Once on shore, we went up to the E-Base (a 20 meter climb) setup by Robert Swan and his 2041 team as a station from where to educate and inspire young people around the world about Antarctica and our environment. The coolest part was the visit to E-Home where Robert Swan spent the last two weeks, surviving solely on renewable energy. There is a windmill, and solar panels that harvest the wind and solar power to generate enough electricity to light the E-Home, provide heating, and provide few other amenities like communication access to the outside world. Pretty cool and fascinating stuff. We even found out that Robert was able to get a shower and a shave in hot water during the two weeks. There was hardly had any sun when I was there and I am told the weather was similar to that in the preceding two weeks. But they still were able to harvest enough energy to be self sufficient for two weeks. Why on earth can’t be we do this back home as well?

While on land, we also went on a small hike to the nearest beach. After about an hour of ice, snow, wind, cold, slippery slopes, we spotted some seals at the beach. For everything else, there is MasterCard. We took the zodiacs back to the ship, together with Robert Swan and his E-Base team, before the weather got any worse. What a day it was! It was nice to get off the ship and do something different. You can sense the renewed excitement in everybody. Plenty of conversations, laughter and stories of Robert’s adventures onboard. Just what the doctor ordered!