Off to sea

After a rather long and much needed stop at customs we are off to sea. Local time is 23:45 and we started rocking about 15 minutes ago. Luckily just as I secured everything in my cabin after securing all my cargo. Actually the crew helped me with cargo so much! I can't even describe how grateful I am.
I am losing signal, so good bye South Africa, good bye online friends.
Oh, one more thing - CBS news called me on board for an interview today. So look for it on their website, it should come out in a few days.
Off to bed, the light rocking of the ship is so calming...

Good night and till later,
Masha

South African food

Hello!

I have been meaning to sit down and write up my impressions of Cape Town, but the ship had kept me super busy. I managed to get two travel days - a visit to the Table Mountain and Botanical Gardens during my first day here and a drive to Cape of Good Hope on the second. I covered those days already in terms of sights visited. Today I will talk a little about food.

The only touristy thing that I managed to do after the work on the ship started was visit a couple of very touristy restaurants at the Waterfront. I was mainly interested in local dishes.

This dish is called bobotie, it is from Cape Malay. There is minced beef in curry that is covered with egg-based topping and baked. Served with rice and a couple of sweet sauces to mellow the spicy beef taste. I really enjoyed it.

This is a carpaccio (raw meat) dish of exotic animals: ostrich, crocodile and springbok. I liked crocodile the best.

I am going to miss this variety of exotic food at hand, summer fruits and the craziness of people shopping for Christmas gifts at the mall...

***

We are scheduled to leave port tomorrow, our meal schedule and structure is identical to what my grandfather journaled about in 1959; I mean the timings of all meals are exactly the same:

1959

Судовые порядки строги и целесообразны. 

Подъем в 07:00 по-местному (судовому) времени. 

С 7:30 до 8:30 - завтрак (это обычно вволю свежего чудесного хлеба с маслом и чем-либо ещё вроде сыра или колбасы и сколько хочешь сладкого чая или кофе).

Обед с 11:30 до 12:30. Пища очень вкусная и сытная.  Первое - от пуза, второе – мясное или рыбное обязательно, третье – фрукты.

В 15:30 до 16 30 – чай, опять же с обилием хлеба с маслом.

А в 19:30 – 20:30 уже ужин. Это по существу второй обед из трёх блюд и опять сколько хочешь супа или щей.

2016-2017

This is the planned timing of meals for the ACE expedition:

Breakfast: 7:30 – 8:30; Lunch: 11:30 – 12:30; Tea: 15:30-16:30; Dinner 19:30 – 20:30 

Hot water, tea, instant coffee, sweets will be provided around the clock in the room outside the mess. 

Some things just never change I guess ;)

The food is plentiful, but not exotic and according to my grandfather's journal it gets too repetitive too soon. The quote above was made early on, Vitaly's later comments referred to being rather bored with food and wishing for something different...

I am going to miss that crocodile meat I tried at Cape Town Waterfront!

A short update while still in port

Hello, everyone.

I haven't updated for a while, cause I was super busy trying to get ready. It is not easy in so many ways. I am also spreading myself way too thin trying to organize my own program while helping out my colleagues.

The ship was never meant to have a large science group like ours and even the small amounts of space they have have not been properly maintained. Science instruments the ship nominally has are mostly in a very bad condition. Again, cause there is nobody to take care of it and somehow when people do use them they don't clean up after themselves, don't drain salty water off to prevent rusting and so on. 

The crew for the most part are extremely accommodating, I have a lot of THANK YOUs to give and need to seriously stock up on thank you bottles and thank you cigarette packs ;). But unfortunately sometimes there is a limit on what they can do... The ship will not magically become bigger and the hold is not going to magically get an inside door.

The best word to describe the whole expedition is "opportunistic". I have to say this word worries me. It might result in good science, but most likely it will result in a lot of lost opportunities. Something we could have done along the way, but did not have enough preparation/planning to make it happen. Normally such cruises have a few years to prepare, this one was put together under an extremely tight schedule. Oh well...

NOTE TO MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY: Please don't be worried about safety, I am talking about lost science opportunities. We will be keeping as safe as we can in the Southern Ocean and I do have trust in the crew/operations people.

Another point I wanted to make is a language/cultural barrier. I tried to be really helpful to many-many people, but I am just one and somehow a lot of times I'm getting ignored by some important people, who should have listened. One thing I'm trying to explain over and over again is a cultural difference. In Russian culture we all grew up to answer NO to a question we don't quite understand/know how to answer. So my fellow colleagues and upper management have been getting a lot of unreasonable NOs. I can see how frustrating it can be, I just wish some of them would have taken my advise earlier. Knowing how to ask "but why" is a skill, which I have been offering to share for a few months now. However, I am a single person running my own science project, I can not solve too many issues at once. I could have solved a lot more early on. Another oh well... 

What I am trying to say I guess is this. On a Russian ship sometimes NO does mean NO, but sometimes NO can be negotiated to a YES under specific conditions. We can not risk the safety of people, but we are willingly going to the Southern Ocean to do science, so might as well try to negotiate getting the largest return possible. I am working really hard to make it happen.

On that note, I have to stop, cause we are leaving tomorrow and there's too many things to do.

Thanks for reading!
Masha

Akademik Tryoshnikov in Cape Town

Meanwhile Akademik Tryoshnikov made it to South Africa. This photo was taken by someone on the ship as they were approaching Cape Town:

The ship arrived early morning on December 15, 2016 and by lunchtime they cleared customs and docked at the premium spot at the Waterfront. Just a short walking distance to the touristy bit of Victoria Wharf, cafes, restaurants and hotels.

Swiss Polar Institute put up an educational/promotional display at the Waterfront, where people can learn about our upcoming expedition. There is even ski-doo on display - a rather funny looking machine in the middle of sunny summer wharf filled with tourists.

 Swiss shipping containers and a ski-doo. 

I had to pose on a ski-doo wearing a dress!

I went back to the Swiss house again today and ended up talking to tourists about the crazy work that I do. It was actually quite nice to talk to people, to answer questions about my work and just random questions about Antarctica. And since I am being all philosophical here I want to make an observation. It is amazing how much listening one needs to do in order to answer a question. Random questions asked by people usually had some stories, (mis)conceptions, personal interests and agendas behind them - unraveling them is extremely important before answering a question that  was asked.

Posing near the SPI container after answering questions.

After that we walked to the ship and worked till the sun set. 

Cape of Good Hope

It is hard to find a more poetic name for a geographical location. I remember learning about it in high school geography classes and thinking that it would be so wonderful to go visit. Little did I know that it would be possible.

The tip of the peninsula is located about 65 km south of Cape Town, but it took me about 4 hours to drive. The road goes through many touristy towns with really pretty beaches. I took many recommendations from local friends on where to stop and ended up stopping way too many times.

African penguins

The eastern side of the Cape peninsula is washed by the Indian ocean and even though it is not "warm" by usual standards, it is a couple of degrees warmer than the Atlantic (western) side.  So I went for a swim in so-called tidal pools:

And then again with the penguins.

CO-EXIST: Simon's town penguin colony and public beach in one panorama shot.

Finally I got to the Table Mountain National Park. The drive up to the tip of the peninsula was really pretty. Like other national parks around the world it is now equipped with plagues outlining the significance of these particular points.

Obligatory picture with the geographical coordinates sign.

Once you get to the end of the road you can hike up to the highest point overlooking the tip of the peninsula.

But the most magnificent view is looking back at the Cape of Good hope. Not surprisingly - this is the view that impressed my grandfather the most as well:

Cape of Good Hope and Dias beach as seen from Cape Point. 

December 1959 and December 2016.

First impressions of Cape Town now and then

My grandfather's journal entry about Cape Town is anticlimactic. This was the first country he ever visited outside the USSR and one would imagine that he was overwhelmed. Plus, South Africa was in the midst of apartheid, it would have been a very different experience to visit it back then. Instead of listing his impressions or feelings, Vitaly admits being overwhelmed. I am not going to translate it word by word, but basically it sums up to my grandfather’s frustration with their ship’s “political leader (aka KGB officer)” who failed to send letters home. 

13 декабря 1959 года

Южный Ледовитый океан

Район 55 градусов южной широты

С большим опозданием и без всякого энтузиазма возвращаюсь я к этой тетради, в которую не заглядывал уже больше недели.

Посетили Кейптаун. Впечатлений масса… О них можно было бы писать десятки страниц, они многогранны и разнообразны, имеют и положительные и (ещё больше) отрицательные стороны словом первые впечатления от заграницы, да ещё такой кондовой капиталистической – оглушает. Другим словом я затрудняюсь определить этот комплекс впечатлений. Запомнилось масса деталей, куча интересных (по крайней мере на мой взгляд) подробностей как о городе и его окрестностях, которые мы видели при подъезде на мыс Доброй Надежды через весь полуостров, так и о населяющих город людях, их одежде, привычках, некоторых мыслях… Конечно все это (или часть хотя бы) надо было бы обязательно записать, потому что детали забудутся, а общее впечатление может исказиться. Первое впечатление всегда самое полное и интересное, что больше не повторится.

И все же не могу, не поднимается перо все это описать. Испорчено впечатление, отравлено настроение, подорвано доверие, испорченные сложившиеся хорошие отношения между людьми. А всё из-за одного мерзавца, испортившего настроение полутораста человекам из экспедиции и экипажа судна, доставившего беспокойство им и их близким.

A SIDE NOTE FROM  MASHA IN 2016:

Communicating with family and friends from outside of the USSR was extremely difficult. All letters were censored and nobody was allowed to send letters directly, only "official diplomatic channels" were used. The USSR had no diplomatic relationship with South Africa back in 1959, so my grandfather's letters had no embassy to go through. The "political leader/KGB officer" was supposed to talk to the Czechoslovakian embassy and have them mail the letters back to Moscow, but somehow this did not happen in December of 1959. Considering that Vitaly could only send letters home from ports (i.e. once in a few months if he was lucky), one can understand his frustration and lack of enthusiasm to continue writing in his journal, which he considered a "very long letter to family and friends".

***

This frustration got me thinking about the luxury of social media nowadays. The first thing I did in South Africa was obtain a sim-card with an extensive data plan (BIG THANK YOU TO MY FRIENDS! Sim-cards are not so easy to obtain for a foreigner in South Africa), which allows me to keep in touch with my family and friends all over the world. I send them pictures and notes about things I see, and it makes my experiences traveling around Cape Town so much more meaningful. And this is exactly what my grandfather was lacking. I feel so lucky! 

***
So not to leave this post similarly anticlimactic, I will write about some of my first impressions of Cape Town below. 

Flying into Cape Town I was completely smitten by Table Mountain: 

View of Cape Town and the gorgeous Table Mountain from my airplane window

Table mountain is everywhere:

My first trip to the beach with my new south african friends. 
Sunset beach provides great views of Table Mountain. The water was unexpectedly cold, reminded me of swimming in San Francisco bay without a wet suit. I basically ran in and ran out, just enough to mess up my hair ;).

So since Table Mountain was calling me from everywhere, naturally I had to go on top of it and look around:

This is the first view you see as you get off the cable car - featuring Lion's Head, Signal hill and parts of Cape Town city. The island you see off the bay is called Robben island the most infamous political prison in South Africa. This is where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. The prison is now a museum.

This picture is taken looking just the west of the previous view. There are multiple hiking paths coming to the top of Table Mountain, something to keep in mind for the time my knee completely heals up. Devil's peak is the name of the neighboring mountain currently in the clouds - hiking Devil's peak has been the top one hiking recommendation from many friends. Next time!

This is a view due west from the top of Table Mountain, featuring 

Camps Bay suburb and beach - a very nice place by the looks of it.

 Looking south on a cloud-free day one can see the tip of the peninsula - Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point. It is somewhat obscured by clouds in my picture. That area is a national park, featuring magnificent views and many hiking trails of its own.

Table Mountain is dissected in the middle by a narrow canyon, this is where one the hiking trails, Patteklip Gorge comes up. 

I don't know the name of this flower, but it looked like a real trooper surviving high winds atop Table Mountain. 

There is a lot a lot more to describe and to see in Cape Town besides Table Mountain, but this post is getting too long as it is. I will write up a story about a drive to the Cape of Good Hope, but for now let me just show you a panoramic view from the top. Breathtaking:

Panoramic view from atop Table mountain overlooking Cape Town.

Thanks for reading!
Masha