Turning towards home
We have had our last landing on the Shetland Islands and turned our bow to the Drake Passage for what the expedition leader is predicting to be a very rough “Drake shake”. The captain is trying to stay ahead of a typhoon (60+ knots) that is moving down the coast of Chile but is still expecting up to 40 knot winds. We have our seasickness patches on......here we go!
It’s been a wonderful nine day voyage so far, to a very magical, beautiful, wild place. We have seen many species of whales, seals, penguins & birds. We have gazed on the most fantastical sculptures of white and blue brash ice, growlers, berger bits & full blown icebergs - who would have thought there were that many names for iceberg!
After being off the grid we are now catching up on the crazy stuff that’s happening with COVID19. The first news we had from Oceanwide was that Argentina was closing its borders. Despite this, we would still be able to disembark at Ushuaia, though a day later so that everyone onboard had served out a 14 day isolation period. This meant we will miss our flights out of Ushuaia. Since then it has been a bit of a scramble as people began getting messages from travel agents about flights being cancelled or changed.
It is clear that the airlines are all in meltdown with drastically reduced flying schedules.
We have Jeremy, Keayn & Emma on the “Get Jen & Jode Home Project”, Sarah helping out with DFAT advice & Yvonne & Doug keeping us in the loop on family (both de Vries & Thomas) and other news from home. Everyone is doing a fab job in very interesting times. At this stage we have no confirmed flights, but are relying on Qantas/Aus Gov/Argentina Gov wanting to get us home!
We have many photos and videos to keep us busy whilst we complete the 14 day self isolation once we are home. Jemery has promised to shop beforehand and we received our regular box of 48 toilet rolls from “Who Gives a Crap” just before we left....so we should be well supplied.
Once we know more about our flights we will let you all know.
Take care in what is panning out to be extraordinary times for all of us. Family & friends will count as we traverse the next few months.
The ships webmail account that we are currently using will work at least till the 20th and maybe the 21st March. After that we hope to be able to communicate via usual channels!! Like regular email, text message, FaceTime etc. In the meantime you might email us with your news, or your take on the news as we are media starved and have two days of rough seas to look forward to 😩😩🤢🤢
Love from us both
Jode and Jen
Aboard Plancius, near Shetland Islands