Turning Around, Crew Member Sick

Paul spent the better part of the morning catching up on sleep after his shift finished at 2am.

Just after lunch, an announcement was made that the ship was heading back to Ushuaia. A crew member was very sick. (It is usually best not to go to Antarctica when sick because there is no quick way to get someone airlifted to hospital.)

Soon after the announcement I went to the Bridge for a bit. You can see photographs of the screen which shows depth readings taken by different ships. Red is for shallower areas. White areas have still yet to be depth recorded or it is too deep. The ship does have a depth sounder, which helps and will also record and add to the data available to ships. And you can see the image of the sea floor.

On another screen, you can see the track we have made and the turn around point to head back towards Ushuaia.

We arrived at the pilot station sometime after 9pm and the crew member was offloaded onto a pilot boat and will be taken to hospital.

In the meantime the ship has now turned around and is heading back to antarctica. She has picked up speed so we should make up some lost time and should hopefully arrive on time at the scheduled destination on 7th November.Read more