Sunday, 24 January 2010
The calm stormy seas have been very common during this expedition. So much so that we have had to abandon our cruise track once and most other times to alter station plans working around the weather. The constant battering of the waves against the ship has also demanded a sleeping manner of heaving, tossing and turning in bed much to the chagrin of a much-required rest after a long day or night’s work. Popular inkling labors on a ‘such-is-life-at-sea’ phrase and/or ‘such-is-the-Southern-Ocean’!
However, the stormy Southern Pacific Ocean also showed a new fascia of remarkable calm never seen before during this cruise. Any discernible waves or patterns of such had ceased to exist for miles and the ocean lingered simply as a mirror of an overcast greyish day! Mountain lakes shaded by crags and hills, where time just stands still, flood into memory! Either it was a natural ‘calm before the storm’ as the cliché demands or an often conspicuous platitude of ‘calm after the storm’, owing to the then recently escaped storm, because of which we had to alter our cruise track.
Yet, such calm ambiance also provided an opportunity to reflect on the immediacy of our track to New Zealand and the rising air temperatures (of about 10° C) evident of reaching sub-tropical regions after being on sea for exactly 53 days. It is the Tuesday January 19th 2010 as I write and we arrive in New Zealand on the 25th January midnight touching the dawn of the 26th January 2010.
Abhinav Gogoi
First view of an island (the Antipodes Islands)