Swell

I’m afraid of the ocean, of deep waters. Always have been. The smothering depths. Cold rough water piled over me like a hundred cubic mile tombstone. I’m not afraid of anything in particular: sharks, sealife, etc. It’s like being afraid of death. The only thing to do is to try and get used to it, expose myself to it.

In recent years I’ve learned to sea kayak, and to surf. So, I’m OK now when I’m near the shore. And I’ve been on large ferries near land or in the Mediterranean. Also, sailboats near a shore, or on the San Francisco Bay. But I’ve never been out in the open ocean, days away from land. The though of it freezes me up, strickens my chest, tightens my throat. Writing about it makes the tips of my fingers sweaty.

I’m going anyway, it seems. I board the Prof. Molchanov in a few hours, then out at sea for 10 days.

People I tell about my fear think I’m concerned about the odds of something happening, the particular dangers of a particular situation, or perhaps being seasick. It’s more general than that, though.

Crossing Drake’s Passage is how one gets to the Antarctic Peninsula. Drake’s and the Souther Ocean are home to some of the roughest seas in the world. You can’t make this trip without a good traveler’s insurance policy for repatriation and medical evacuation. Can you imagine someone having a heart attack 2 days away from land and needed to be evacuated by helicopter? Sweet Palin’s Ghost!

I could not help but look at the sea conditions and the forecast. It looks like we’ll encounter 6 meter (18+ feet) swells. I’ve put on my Scopalomine anti-sea-sickness patch, Meclazine to follow in the next hour.

Scopalomine works by making you pre-dizzy, it seems. Haha. I’m in a bit of a fog from it. I don’t actually know if I get sea-sick, but whenever I’ve talked to anyone who’s done this, they have said: “You will get sick.” Ulp.

What will I actually do when I get there? Standard the Zodiac landings and little boating tours to look at wildlife, ice formations, bergs, whales. But the reason I signed up with OceanWide is that I will be sea-kayaking. I bought a “dry suit” and lots of neoprene gear to survive polar waters should I dump my craft. I sure hope I don’t. The water is between -2 and +3C. That. Is. Cold.

We’ll be heading towards the South Shetland Islands, Lemaire Channel, Port Lockroy and Deception Island, and points along the north-western side of the tail of the Antarctic Peninsula. The Weddell Sea and the Larsen Ice Shelf lie on the other side of the Peninsula. I do not think we will see that. The itinerary is vague, because conditions greatly determine where you go, what you do. I’m excited to see all this stuff, but anxiety and fear are the dominant things now. With luck and time, that will change. It will take something like 2+ days each way to cross Drake’s Passage.

This will be the last post until at least 14 December, when I make landfall here in Ushuaia again…