Having hired a big puffy coat and wearing so many layers of clothes that it's a struggle to bend my limbs, I board the Sarpik Ittuk at 4pm. This proves to be overkill as it´s 6 degrees outside and very warm on board. My cabin mates are a Spanish girl and Dutch lady. We´ll be getting to know each other fairly well during the next two days travelling through the Drake Passage.
On board our passports are whisked away and we´re shown to our cabins and handed the itinerary for the day:-
At 5pm there's a safety briefing where we´re advised to keep one hand free all the time to steady ourselves. I quickly learn this is most invaluable advice.
At 6pm we depart Ushuaia and travel down the Beagle Channel. As we're leaving port I hear a voice - 'Maria!' and see a hand waving from the boat next to ours. It´s Elizabeth, who I was travelling with in Patagonia, who is about to embark on her own Antarctic adventure.
At 7pm it's champagne with the Captain (liking this already). I hear there are 64 passengers on board - 20 Italians plus 11 other nationalities. The majority I guess at being in the 55+ age group.
At 8pm its dinner, a three-course extravaganza with wine which turns out to be the norm, twice a day for the duration of the trip.
At 11pm we drop off the pilot as we leave the Beagle Channel and enter the Drake Passage. At dinner I listen to horror stories of sickness in the Drake so I take the pills, which are being freely handed out by the ship's doctor, and go to bed.
I wake up (at 1am) when my head slams against the top of my bunk. We're rolling dramatically, and I'm rolling too! - from one end of the bed to the other as the ship pitches and rolls in the swell. I'm awake again at 4am but then go back to sleep until 6am when the P.A bing-bongs to announce early bird coffee in the library. Don't think so - as they say.
(Photo - penguins porpoising)
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