9 December 2006,
by Thomas MulcaireSat 9 Dec 2006, South Atlantic, GPS position at 06h00 37 deg 40'7''S 012 deg 21'7''E^M^MThe ships set her clocks back at midnight as we moved westward into Alpha time. I set the alarm before we turned in for bed last night but punched 11 instead of 23 when setting the clock back so the alarm didn't go off at 07h00 and we missed breakfast for the second morning running. I wasn't too bothered but Amanda was a bit stressed and headed for the kitchen where she managed to secure 2 granadilla yoghurts and some tea before they shut down. Amanda is still suffering from sea sickness which worsens on an empty stomach. I got up at 08h50 thinking I was too late for the first scheduled I-TASC crew meeting but found the library (our meeting place) empty. I checked in with First and Adam and found them still asleep at 9am. We eventually all met in the library around 9h30 where we discussed the work idea some more. Adam said he would prefer to work together in the afternoon as he struggled to get up early in the morning, which First and Amanda agreed with so we have decided to work on I-TASC tasks in the afternoon between lunch and dinner. We also discussed communication and the website and the crash at Ljudmila. We decided to work on a provisional site which we would try to post through the BGAN terminal by evening. We planned the site in the half-hour remaining until lunch. Adam suggested a skeleton structure following the five basic prompts: who, what, where, when, how. We decided to post the site to my dreamhost account with a frameset posted to Adam's server where the old i-tasc.org site is currently hosted.
Because of the prohibitive costs of data usage on the BGAN terminal we decided to keep the whole site below 100Kb and include images as gifs if necessary. Lunch was good as usual but I'm observing that I eat very quickly and a lot. I'm not sure if this has to do with missing breakfast or some nervous energy I am still carrying with me. We met to build the site at 13h00. Adam focused on writing the HTML after setting up an ftp network to which Amanda, First and I could post texts and images. We decided on the LADOMIR image as the header fading to white from left to right. Amanda felt sick soon after we started working and retired to her cabin. I think the motion of the sea and focusing on a creen can exacerbate the nausea, although Adam looked ok the whole afternoon. I focused on writing and editing the texts and First used Amanda's powerbook to work on reducing the images. By 16h00 we had most of the material together and Adam had finished the structure and layout. The site has a clean minimal look. Amanda returned and I felt really tired so I decided to take a break. Amanda worked on the when text and helped Adam with design and typography for the headers. I spent half-an-hour on the open-air ook out seat above the bridge with the birders Cliff and Sarita who had spotted two fin whales in the morning. We sighted a Yellow-billed Albatross, Soft-Plumaged Petrel and an Antarctic Prion. I then spent an hour on the bridge talking to Freddie the Chief Officer about swell and ice conditions and our course. We are on a SSW heading 210 deg to join with the Greenwich Meridian at around 57 deg S and then we'll head due south for Neumayer. We also spoke about the differences between designations in naval and commercial shipping.
The Master (in Navy-speak the Captain) Jonathan Wanliss came up to the bridge with a satellite image of the area north of Neumayer where we would try to move through the ice along the Greenwich Meridian. Typically this area has a warm upwelling which melts the icepack quicker than the sectors west (Weddel Sea) and east (SA Bukta) but the satellite image was remarkable for the amount of ice which had melted, showing an ice-free path down to Neumayer. Freddie and Wanliss said that if these conditions continued our journey down would be closer to 10 days rather than 15 as planned. I asked Jonathan for a copy of the satellite image so we can plot our course down below 60 deg. Jonathan asked me if I had been down before and smiled wryly when I said that I hadn't. It seems we are set to be initiated as we pass the Antarctic circle. Wine was served at dinner which I am told is always steak. I had Ostrich. After dinner we tracked down Pierre on the bridge level and he connected us to the BGAN terminal so we could upload our website. The signal was good (90%) without stabilization but the conditions on the deck were atrocious. Windy and cold. We typed in the dark mostly although Pierre's LED headlamp was very useful. Pierre took a couple of pictures of Adam and I kneeling over our machines in the dark. I couldn't login to my ssh account (password amnesia) so we installed the site on Adam's server for now which was hosting i-tasc.org anyway. The signal dropped a couple of times but Adam did the business, typing strings of linux as his battery faded.