I had originally started to dictate this post because I was unable to look at my Phone to type. But reading it back it’s full of errors and I don’t even know what I was trying to mumble, so I’m starting again.
I thought I was invincible with my highly recommended seasickness tablets. I lay in bed for many hours trying not to roll out of bed. The waves were apparently on average 5-7m high, with some up to 10m. Later we learned this was a “medium” bad trip. Dear god. I wouldn’t have survived a bad sailing.
I’d been feeling reasonably fine. Until about 2:30am when I was desperate to pee, so Dan helped me out of bed while the room was pitching quite violently. Let’s just say that by the time I made it to the bathroom, my first port of call was not to pee but to be violently ill. I was unable to shake the seasickness from this point on, and I was periodically throwing up. Thankfully I had the ice bucket our honeymoon champagne (which still remains undrunk) that I was able to curl myself around. The room rocked left and right and up and down. I had to lie on my side with a knee outstretched to avoid rolling off the bed. The room creaked and groaned, and cupboard doors and draws (and even the shower door I think) spent the night banging open and then banging closed again.
In the morning Dan tried to get me up for breakfast but I only managed to sit in a chair, continuing to throw up until I just said - I absolutely can’t. He went and got some breakfast at the buffet and came back with some different seasickness tablets and some bananas for me. Staying lying down, I managed to get the tablet and the banana in me and was able to sleep a bit as they knocked me out. I stayed this way until after 2pm. Dan ran about the ship attending various briefings and reporting back. At about 2pm he brought me a burger and some hot chips to try to eat. The burger wasn’t going to happen but I did demolish the chips, and about an hour after that I was able to contemplate getting up. I attempted to have a shower (read: I sat on the heated tiled floor, even lay down on it for a little while) which made me feel a fraction more human.
Sorry that this isn’t the most thrilling post today! When Dan finally gets his notes up and running he can tell you what he did and learned! He learnt about the kayaking and camping options and entered us into the lucky draw for both.
One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is what came over the speaker at about 9:30am.
Overnight a passenger had been injured and required more medical care than was available onboard. We were turning around and heading back to the start of the Drake Passage so a tender could come out and pick The person up.
Wut.
At the time of the announcement we were already turning around.
I lay curled around my bucket in disbelief. I had just had a dreadful night and I would have to do it again.
Dan came rushing back to the room to check if I had heard. Oh well, not a lot we could do. And while I was scared for myself of doing the drake passage again, knowing how badly I had handled the night before I didn’t begrudge the poor person who had injured themselves. And the whole ship was great - I didn’t hear one person moan about it.
The medical team were supposed to be on the pilot ship when we entered the mouth of the Drake Passage. Watching the pilot boat approach, it was obviously a rough journey and the captain deemed it too dangerous for the injured passenger to be unloaded.
Back to Ushuaia it was.
Back to the start.
Take two.
I started to feel better and left the cabin that night for dinner in our fancy restaurant. We ate as we approached Ushuaia at about 8pm and as we were sitting at the window we were pretty nosy watching the ambulance arrive, but we didn’t see the passenger leave the boat. From talking to others onboard, a lady had broken her hip and required surgery - the closest place she could go was in Chile.
Dinner We opted not to drink tonight as that probably didn’t help my sickness. I had the pea soup for starters (“that’ll be fun when I throw it up again!”), the roast duck and passion fruit sorbet for dessert. It was all very tasty.
We were told we would make it to Antarctica by about 1pm on 1 January - the crew had decided to turn the whole trip upside and so we are starting with Deception Island and then will continue down the coast, leaving less time for us to get back at the end but who cares? We don’t mind if we miss flights!
So basically the first full day on the boat was written off. I was dreadfully sick, and we had to go back to the start and begin again! We joked with some of the crew while we were rephotographing Ushuaia that this was Take 2, we had the dress rehearsal so now it’s time for the real thing!
Hopefully tomorrow I feel a bit better and can get up and about.
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