Saturday, December 30, 2023
Today, the grip of my sickness subsided enough that I at last felt ready to pursue some Antarctic adventure, just in time, too. After breakfast and coffee, everyone met in the Aula (or via closed-circuit tv) for the morning briefing. Our Expedition Leader, Marc, informed us that the Polaris was now in Fournier Bay, on the northeast coast of Anvers Island whose highest point is Mount Francais (2,760 m). We also learned that our fellow passengers hailed from nine countries (mostly the U.S.) but the crew was from 30-40 different countries with the Philippines, Indonesia, India and the U.K. being the most represented. An age distribution of the passengers was presented with most passengers being between 70 and 79 years; one 95-year-old passenger was on board!
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| Expedition Leader, Marc, presents our Morning Briefing |
After the meeting, I headed to Guest Services because the Viking app and tv display didn’t have one or the other of us on some of the activities that we had signed up for together months ago. After waiting for awhile, I was told not to worry about it, just show up at the right time and we would be accommodated. I went back later in the afternoon to inquire again and got the same response. Seems like the app was created only to incite anxiety in Viking passengers. Meanwhile, Jane attended a session in the Aula about iPhone photography.
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| iPhone Photography Lecture in the Aula |
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| Fournier Bay from our Stateroom Window |
We learned that we were selected to go on the first submarine dive at 1:45 pm. We would board George, one of four yellow submersibles that Viking operates on these expeditions. (The others are named John, Paul, and Ringo.) So, after lunch in the World Cafe, Jane and I headed back to stateroom 4055 to test out our outdoor gear, combining clothes we brought with those Viking had provided (outer jacket, puffy inner jacket, waterproof pants, boots, and life jackets). Fully decked out, we reported to Deck A in the bowels of the ship five minutes before departure time, as instructed. There, we were given neoprene booties and seat number cards (4 for Jane, 6 for me) to hang around our necks.
Soon, six passengers and our sub pilot were boarding a Zodiac docked alongside a door and then were bouncing along away from the ship and toward the icy shore. After about 10 minutes, we slowed and pulled adjacent to our submarine floating on the surface. Well, of course we were to board in reverse chronological order so that I was first to venture aboard the sub. Employing the sailor’s handshake that we had been taught, a Viking assistant helped me step from the Zodiac to the top of our bobbing submersible where I could grasp a railing and descend three steps of a ladder into the small circular sub. The tiny interior had a pilot’s station with fancy instrumentation and monitors in the center and semi-circular seating for three passengers on each side in front of globular viewing windows. In others words, we would be riding inside a fish bowl with the fish on the outside. Passenger five followed and sat on the opposite side of the sub, then Jane, passenger four, descended and sat beside me. After everyone was seated the pilot descended, locked up the hatch, and gave us a safety briefing which included what to do if he became unconscious. Yikes! Then he rotated the seats so that we all faced the windows and descended to below 500 ft at a surprisingly fast rate. The descent rate slowed as we neared the bottom where the pilot turned on outside lights. There we sat, hovering above the sandy Antarctic ocean floor. Scattered about on the sand were occasional creatures, star fish and sun stars. As we moved around, we also encountered small schools of small fish. While on the bottom, the pilot turned off the interior and exterior lights so we could experience deep sea darkness, an eerie feeling. After a relatively rapid ascent, we transferred back into the Zodiac in chronological order so that I was the last passenger to leave the fishbowl. Although we didn’t see much of interest at the bottom of Fournier Bay, it was a fascinating experience.
After safely returning from the submarine to our cozy stateroom, we removed our outer wear and hung it in our drying closest(all rooms are equipped with one). While waiting and gawking at the wonderful view from our stateroom window, I noticed two humpback whales below and soon a Zodiac full of Viking passengers pulled up to observe, too. Later, we went to view a great documentary, “Continent 7: Storming Antartica” in the Aula but had to leave early in order to get to our scheduled Zodiac excursion. After redonning our heavy gear, we headed out again to explore the bay. We saw a humpback whale but the perspective we had earlier from our stateroom window was more impressive. We darted around viewing and learning about various types of ice around us. It was an overcast day and low clouds obscured all but the lowest parts of the icy mountains surrounding the water.
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| Inter-excursion Entertainment in the Living Room, Touch-top Game Tables |
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