Written Thursday 20th December 07
By Margot Foster
A social day with the inaugural ‘Shipboard Seminar’ scheduled at 1300hrs These are to be held in ‘D’ deck recreation room twice a week.
Today’s bill:
“Dr Bryan G. Fry, from the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at the University of Melbourne is speaking on ‘Evolution of an Arsenal: Diversification of the Reptile Venom System’. Dr Fry will show some marvellous pictures of dangerous reptiles”
We have more offers of talks than there are spaces for them so I’ll offer a ‘Speakers Corner’ in the evenings as well.
We have crossed the line – the 60th parallel, and are officially in Antarctica. The event is marked by a visit from King Neptune and his deep-sea cohorts. The ceremony involves acts of submission and degradation before the King (usually the chef or chief steward). I have my certificate and so have been spared 'kissing the fish' and being daubed with muck and force-fed with foul concoctions from a kneeling position – unlike the others.
The ship seems smaller now. Our course is set for the south magnetic pole.We are gliding with barely a creak into a pervasive sea-fog and a strange opaque ever-present light. Even in a gentle sea such as this, with a swell of only a metre, a roll over the wave can make the stabilizer sing and sigh. I go to sleep to its music, gently rocked in my bunk, listening to the steady hum of the engines as we journey further into the misty otherworld.
Margot Foster is a journalist currently on board the Australian Aurora Australis, an Australian research vessel currently participating in the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML, IPY project 53). She works with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
