26TH - 28TH JANUARY

The Drake Passage once again!!

We woke to another sunny morning with almost calm waters. We were definitely in need of some rest and decided to give Edwina’s lecture on Antarctic Krill - Hardcore Prawn a miss! We had a very chilled morning with a few visits to the bridge and had a quick look at some of our photos. We started to pack away our landing wear while the seas were nice and calm. We did notice that our cabin had a faint smell of penguin poop and hoped that it wasn’t too obvious on our clothes!

After lunch we looked at more photos before we watched the last episodes of ‘Life in the Freezer’. After this Mike showed his slides of ‘Diving in Polar Seas’ which had some incredible images. We were then treated to a slideshow by our friendly Russian divers and their images were amazing. We

learned that Mikhail the dive leader was the first person to ever dive under the North Pole! Mikhail is a Professor from Moscow University and a professional diver with his own diving company, whilst the other members of his group were all amateurs and doing this for a hobby! Some hobby! It was a real privilege to have shared our trip with them and see some of their wonderful photographs.

We had a few beers in the bar after dinner and were sad to think that the next evening meal would be our last with Chuckles the very stern faced Russian waitress, who had a tendency to glare at you when thrusting your meal towards you! One thing we were really looking forward to was the thought of a decent meal. The only down side to our trip was the quality of the food, it really was below par. We knew that the ship had a new chef but even so, some of the combinations of food we were served was quite frankly