Sailing in the rough Antarctic waters

Here are some notes I took whist sailing on the Golden Fleece for 4 weeks in the sub-Antarctic regions: 

• You have to sit down in the toilet whether you're a guy or girl, whether you're doing a number one or number two.
• If you leave anything lying around unsecured, whether it's your lunch, cup of tea, Macbook Pro, or even yourself, be prepared for it to fly off.
• Water is magical:

• We spent 5 days crossing the Scotia Sea and another 4 days crossing the Drake Passage. And they were rough, with swells over 8 metres. Some days I spent more than 20 hours in bed. At its worst I hardly ate (no appetite) or drank (fearing the need to get up to go to the loo). It was so bad I actually wanted the drip. Even the combination of Scopoderm patches, Stugeron tablets and sea sickness wristbands didn't work. What was reassuring though, was that even Captain Jerome (who's done this for 30+ years) had to lie down every now and again. Here's a peek of what it was like, but no videos can do it justice, it just had to be experienced...

• Having spent more than 3 weeks with James, my fellow traveller, on the same boat, I realised he's actually mad:

• Always have your jacket and camera to hand, ready for the unexpected awesome icebergs or whale to appear around the corner (see upcoming blog posts for these!)
• Exercise regimes don't work, so don't bother:

• Be prepared to get wet during dinghy landings, even if you have knee high wellies on.
• Making sure all penguin and seal shit have been scrubbed off before stepping inside.
• Always have some entertainment ready, especially when you're spending days on end at sea. Over 4 weeks I watched at least 15 films, played lots of scrabble (achieving my PB of 121 points on one word, but still lost that game!) and card games like shit head and wist.