Ryan's Journal

"My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?" — David Mitchell

Deception Island, Antarctica

Posted at 11:25 pm, January 16th, 2004

“There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.” — As spoken by Ken Campbell (while heavily, heavily bundled up)

Terrible, terrible weather, but a really fun morning. The landing at Bailey Head was cancelled, so we moved to the more protected shores within Deception Island (the island is an old volcanic cone). Snow was causing near-whiteout conditions, winds were blowing at 30-40 miles per hour, and there were no animals (five Weddell seals and a few skuas being the exception) but Hugh, Carter, Rod and Marlene started flinging snowballs and suddenly we were all about six years old again. Rod and I did a bit of hiking afterwards and had a skua following us at eye level and only a few feet away for a bit. Given the chance I’d have been happy to stay out and continue to experience the more adventurous side of Antarctica, but the staff (wisely) decided that conditions were deteriorating too quickly and pulled everyone out. Our afternoon landing will probably also be scrubbed, but with luck we may still salvage tomorrow’s excursions.

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