Flandres Bay

It was an exciting morning but I’m glad I went out despite the overcast day.

I took a zodiac cruise into Flandres Bay (yes, the spelling is correct), to see the glacier. The ship couldn’t get in closer because of the amount of icebergs in the bay, so it was quite a bit of a ride to the glacier face. We got to about 400m of the glacier face, but no closer per law.

As we headed back to the ship, the steering mechanism stopped working. We had power but it was no good without steering. The expedition leader, Dom, got on the radio for help from a nearby zodiac (we tend to go out in pairs for safety and are never too far from each other). It came alongside, a line was thrown and our bow was tied to the other zodiac which gave us a tow.

Eventually three other zodiacs came, one at a time, and tied up alongside to take some guests. Four guests went into the first two zodiacs and four guests in the third zodiac. I remained with the other three guests. The last two lots of guests got lucky because the other zodiacs were in the process of heading to the glacier face, and had an extended cruise instead of going back to the ship.

As we arrived at the ship, an empty zodiac came alongside our stricken vessel and ferried the rest of us to the ship while the towing zodiac let go of the towing rope so that it could take its guests to the ship. Eventually the stricken zodiac was towed alongside the ship and hoisted back up on deck for fixing. Everyone was happy and laughing so it was a good thing.

This afternoon we did the polar plunge off the ship. The weather still wasn’t great and the ship had to manoeuvre a bit, occasionally, to try to keep leeward of the wind in order to protect the landing zone side of the ship a bit for the jumpers. Nevertheless, when it was my turn for the plunge, the zodiac tied to the ship was bouncing quite a bit so I was advised not to do a somersault. I managed to do a quick dive though, getting my balance as the zodiac settled before the next swell. As usual, I felt absolutely fantastic!

I feel blessed to be here and am so grateful to be alive!Læs mere