ANTARCTICA: First day heading back to S. America

ANTARCTICA: First day heading back to S. America

Drake Passage, Antarctica, Antarctica

We started heading back through the Drake Passage last night and it is so much smoother than the first time we passed through. I heard a couple of references to “Drake Lake” last night while I was in the bar and I didn’t get it, but now I do. This water is just about as calm as a lake, so no excitement of dishes flying or anything like that.

Ryan and I hung out in the bar for most of the day with Reuben, Ainsley, and Missy. Reuben and I were checking out some of our pictures we had taken over the last week, and I dropped my external hard drive off my lap. It landed on the floor only a couple of feet down, but now it doesn’t work. The drive lights up when I plug it in to the laptop, but it never shows up as a drive. I’m pretty worried about it right now because it has every picture and GoPro video I’ve taken in the last nine months on the drive, and I really hope I haven’t lost all that. I’m going to leave it alone and not mess with it and hopefully when I get back to the mainland I can get someone to fix it for me. Fingers crossed!

Besides that, we didn’t get up to much on the ship today. There were a couple of lectures that were put on, but Ryan and I were just not interested, so we skipped them. It’s weird that now we’re on the ship and we’re going to be here for two more days, even though the trip is finished. We’ve seen everything we’re going to see, but it’s going to take ages to get back to South America. Going to see a lecture seems pointless at this point because of that.

At 6pm they had a charity auction in the bar, and most of the people on board showed up for it. It was insane. I have never seen people bid so much money, on such worthless stuff in my life. A couple from London bought a painting that was the size of a postcard for $800. They also bought a map of our journey for $1300, and then asked everyone on the ship to sign it, ON THE FRONT!! No way I would pay that much for something like that and then have a bunch of people I don’t know deface the item. Absolutely ridiculous. They raised about $6000, and I think that English couple contributed about $3000 by themselves. Idiots.

There was another good fireside chat with Dr. Joan tonight about her time cycling around the world. She’s worked as a cycling doctor in a bunch of different countries, and some if it was as a cycling doctor on different tours. Again, I’m very impressed with how much this woman has done in her life. Really makes me want to keep traveling and see more and more.

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