Sailing in the Scoia Sea
A day in the life of a doctor at sea on MS Endeavour. My earliest imaginations on what this would be like date back to the time of Sir James Robertson Justice who starred in films such as Doctor in the house, and Doctor at sea. Down here in Antarctica the experience is totally different but we are still having fun and seeing a lot of beautiful things, Albatross, Icebergs, Penguins, to mention but a few.
Much of the time of this expedition is spent ashore looking and learning about the thousands of animals who make a success surviving in this extremely hostile environment. My wife Anna and I have lived in Africa for 14 years and we thought that we had seen lots of animals, the huge concentrations of King penguins and Fur seals are unbelievable and so tolerant of the human invasion of their environment, they must have forgotten about the seal hunting era and the catching of penguins to be used as fuel in the process of rendering seal blubber. The way these creatures have adapted to life in cold water never ceases to amaze me; the seals have become covered in a very thick skin, insulated with a thick layer of blubber, and equipped with eyes that will see both above and below water. The King penguins are equally well adapted and yet had been made to be quite the most beautiful creatures we have ever seen. The penguins marching in line sometimes 100 or more appeared to be perfectly disciplined and follow their leader, the human race could learn something from these quiet friendly creatures. In the water both the seals and the penguins are perfectly agile an impressive achievement for an air breeding animal.
Apart from the wildlife and scenery as ships doctor I continue to be impressed by both the staff and crew taking such good care of the guests that they don't get injured or get left behind at any of the places we visit. At the same time they all enable the guests to be a bit more adventurous than they would normally be in their own home environment. They too are practicing medicine by preventing things from happening, which could be avoided; an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cures.
Today we continued our journey towards Antarctic Peninsula, almost as a back track of the course Shackleton and his crew sailed towards South Georgia with the James Caird. In the morning we had some great encounters with a group of large baleen whales, two fin whales and one sei whale. Scotia Sea was also very gentle to us as we sailed with good speed with a tail wind. The day was busy with lectures and during the evening recap the underwater specialist onboard was able to show some fascinating pictures from a dive at South Georgia kelp beds. The Antarctic isopod is an amazing creature!
A day in the life of a doctor at sea on MS Endeavour. My earliest imaginations on what this would be like date back to the time of Sir James Robertson Justice who starred in films such as Doctor in the house, and Doctor at sea. Down here in Antarctica the experience is totally different but we are still having fun and seeing a lot of beautiful things, Albatross, Icebergs, Penguins, to mention but a few.
Much of the time of this expedition is spent ashore looking and learning about the thousands of animals who make a success surviving in this extremely hostile environment. My wife Anna and I have lived in Africa for 14 years and we thought that we had seen lots of animals, the huge concentrations of King penguins and Fur seals are unbelievable and so tolerant of the human invasion of their environment, they must have forgotten about the seal hunting era and the catching of penguins to be used as fuel in the process of rendering seal blubber. The way these creatures have adapted to life in cold water never ceases to amaze me; the seals have become covered in a very thick skin, insulated with a thick layer of blubber, and equipped with eyes that will see both above and below water. The King penguins are equally well adapted and yet had been made to be quite the most beautiful creatures we have ever seen. The penguins marching in line sometimes 100 or more appeared to be perfectly disciplined and follow their leader, the human race could learn something from these quiet friendly creatures. In the water both the seals and the penguins are perfectly agile an impressive achievement for an air breeding animal.
Apart from the wildlife and scenery as ships doctor I continue to be impressed by both the staff and crew taking such good care of the guests that they don't get injured or get left behind at any of the places we visit. At the same time they all enable the guests to be a bit more adventurous than they would normally be in their own home environment. They too are practicing medicine by preventing things from happening, which could be avoided; an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cures.
Today we continued our journey towards Antarctic Peninsula, almost as a back track of the course Shackleton and his crew sailed towards South Georgia with the James Caird. In the morning we had some great encounters with a group of large baleen whales, two fin whales and one sei whale. Scotia Sea was also very gentle to us as we sailed with good speed with a tail wind. The day was busy with lectures and during the evening recap the underwater specialist onboard was able to show some fascinating pictures from a dive at South Georgia kelp beds. The Antarctic isopod is an amazing creature!
