CHAPTER 5: IC - At Sea > Australia to Antarctica

[royya]

Father Paul Rucker offers anyone a divine support and a talk about biology.
In the rest of his time he lies in his cabin, reading books

[Job]

5:00 a.m. (ship time) – Monday, October 23, 1933
Pacific Ocean
Wind rises to nearly 50 mph with higher gusts from WSW, very heavy seas and water over the rail.

In the early morning hours of the 23rd of October, the barometer plummets. A fierce gale sweeps in from the west and by five o'clock the wind is blowing in gusts of up to fifty miles an hour. Captain Vredenburgh turns the ship to run with the storm, but for several hours the Gabrielle is at the mercy of wind and wave, tossed from peak to trough by the fury of the elements.

The passengers are taken on the wildest roller coaster ride of their lives, but it is not one that they enjoy. More than half of the expedition is helpless with nausea. Those who remain upright have difficulty even walking on the deck, so fierce is the ship's pitching motion. Small, unsecured objects clatter and roll about the passenger areas. Investigators who are lucky enough to be up and about are sent at once to make certain the cargo and the equipment in the labs does not get loose and smash itself against the walls.


Oil painting by Ivan Aivazovsky

Noon position 161 degrees 20' E, 55 degrees 6' S

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Job. (the tortured one)

OOC,Is this a cool painting or what?

[Mr. Handy]

Katie makes her way carefully to Tweendeck Hold Two to check on the planes, her natural agility making it possible for her to get across the rolling deck - though even then, it isn't easy. Her life is going to depend on those aircraft, and she wants to make extra certain that they aren't damaged.

[royya]

Father Rucker prays for god to ease their voyage.

[Job]

Katie makes her way carefully to Tweendeck Hold Two to check on the planes, her natural agility making it possible for her to get across the rolling deck - though even then, it isn't easy. Her life is going to depend on those aircraft, and she wants to make extra certain that they aren't damaged.

Katie reaches the hatch to tweendeck two, but only after suffering bruises from a nasty fall and slide across the main deck as the Gabrielle listed forty-five degrees to starboard. At the bottom of her slide, she plunged into seawater that swamped the lower portion of the main deck and, if not for grasping a rope along the side rail, she would've surely been washed overboard and lost at sea.

Soaking wet and shivering, she unlocked the hatch and climbed down out of the storm and into the hold. The hanging lightbulbs swung like pendulums, throwing crazy shadows across the stored aircraft and crates. The rolling ship often sent Katie dancing about the tweendeck, but she confirmed the secure condition of the aircraft and returned over an hour later, exhausted, to the safety of the ship's main superstructure.

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Job. (the tortured one)

[Job]

6:50 p.m. (ship time) – Monday, October 23, 1933
Pacific Ocean

Shortly before 7pm, the fierce wind dies and the black wall of clouds to the west dissolves suddenly. Everyone on board is treated to a magnificent sunset, banners of orange and green and gold fusing and chasing one another across the lowering sky. It is a wonderful surprise ending to a memorable day. The Gabrielle turns south once more.

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Job. (the tortured one)

[Mr. Handy]

Katie smiles as she stands on the deck with her hands on the rail, admiring the sight. "That alone makes everything we went through today worth it," she says.

[Anatomist]

George

Katie smiles as she stands on the deck with her hands on the rail, admiring the sight. "That alone makes everything we went through today worth it," she says.

'My stomach respectfully disagrees Katie' George says 'but indeed this is a magnificent frame.'

[Job]

6:32 a.m. (ship time) – Tuesday, October 24, 1933
Pacific Ocean
Cold and clear. Wind SW 20-25 mph. Good progress made.
Noon position 163 degrees 57' E, 57 degrees 47' S

Dawn on the 24th of October breaks clear and cold, with bitter wind sweeping in from the south carrying the chill of the polar ice. Ice rime builds up on lines and railings. After the rough ride of the previous day, the ocean seems smooth as glass. The ship makes excellent progress in moderate seas.


Captain Vredenburgh orders the crew to rig for foul weather, knowing that yesterday's storm will not be the last. Heavy lines are rigged fore and aft along the deck, to be used as handholds and guides when needed, and much loose equipment is stowed. The ship continues south.

...

6:35 a.m. (ship time) – Wednesday, October 25, 1933
Fog hit hard shortly after midnight.
Noon position 165 degrees 4' E, 60 degrees 17' S

Daybreak on October 25th brings with it a weird shadowy world. The ship pushes forward at reduced speed through thick freezing fog. Rime thickens on all exposed surfaces, frost points grow across ports and windows, and the deck becomes slick and dangerous. The captain reduces speed once, then a second time, as visibility drops.


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Job. (the tortured one)

[Mr. Handy]

"It's like we're entering another world," says Katie. "Commander Starkweather won't be pleased that we have to slow down, but there's no avoiding it. At least our competition will be similarly affected."

[royya]

Covering him self wit an heavy coat Father Rucker enjoys a walk in the cold air.
We are near, I'm so excited.

[Job]

"It's like we're entering another world," says Katie. "Commander Starkweather won't be pleased that we have to slow down, but there's no avoiding it. At least our competition will be similarly affected."

Covering him self wit an heavy coat Father Rucker enjoys a walk in the cold air.
We are near, I'm so excited.

Pierce Albemarle, the ship's meteorologist, leans against the railing near you and comments, "Yes, it came to me with strong force how we appreciate things by contrast. Comparing last night's inspiringly beautiful sunset and today's, haunting tranquil fog after the violent storm that we suffered; it does indeed seem as though we've emerged into something quite new and alien."

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Job. (the tortured one)

[Mr. Handy]

"We've explored so much of the world," comments Katie, "but Antartica is one of the last untouched frontiers. People have been there on previous expeditions, but it's such a vast place, and nobody has ever set foot in the part where we're heading, past the mountains. I'm just imagining what it will be like to see it from above, for the first time."

[Job]

"We've explored so much of the world," comments Katie, "but Antarctica is one of the last untouched frontiers. People have been there on previous expeditions, but it's such a vast place, and nobody has ever set foot in the part where we're heading, past the mountains. I'm just imagining what it will be like to see it from above, for the first time."

"Yes!" exclaims Pierce. "This is what I've been waiting for since my days in college. We are explorers of the unknown and will be remembered in scientific journals."

*An hour later, the team sights the first sentinel of the Antarctic--a lone tabular iceberg. It is presently succeeded by others, in increasing quantities, until at last they form an endless procession, stretching as far as the eye could see. They make a striking scene in the half-mist, and the mind suggests fantastic shapes bearing relationship to sculptured forms and faces, some subtly disturbing. There is little time to spare for day-dreaming just then, though, for the meteorologist bears news that the barometer has started to drop with bewildering speed, and the sea develops a long, sustained roll.

The captain turns east, to avoid an isolated section of the flat pack ice dead ahead and makes some distance in this direction before turning back west. The Gabrielle thus slips in behind the smaller pack while the larger pack lies somewhere due south, over the horizon. The race against time--and the weather--was begun.

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Job. (the tortured one)

* Excerpted with minor edits from "Little America" by Admiral Richard Byrd

[Mr. Handy]

Katie sets to work with whatever tasks she is assigned, her strength and endurance standing her in good stead as the weather worsens.

[aine]

Martin stands at the rail, weak and shivering. He's been in his cabin too ill to move for days and has ventured on deck to find himself in a transformed world. "I just don't believe it; they're so huge!" He watches the monstrous icebergs slide by on the oily swell and realises the weather is to take a turn for the worse again. "Sacrebleu, I don't know how much of this I can take." He steps back inside and returns with his camera to take some photographs while he still can.

[Job]

Katie sets to work with whatever tasks she is assigned, her strength and endurance standing her in good stead as the weather worsens.

Katie is assigned to scrape ice from the decks alongside a number of her expedition colleagues. She hears more grumbles from her team members than from the icebergs rubbing against one other.

Martin stands at the rail, weak and shivering. He's been in his cabin too ill to move for days and has ventured on deck to find himself in a transformed world. "I just don't believe it; they're so huge!" He watches the monstrous icebergs slide by on the oily swell and realises the weather is to take a turn for the worse again. "Sacrebleu, I don't know how much of this I can take." He steps back inside and returns with his camera to take some photographs while he still can.

By sunset the ship has passed close by a dozen bergs and Martin captures images aplenty. He spies a huge old glacial table, weathered and crumbling, its sides undercut in a hundred caves from the working of wind and water, balanced precariously atop its submerged base.


One of the floes is a deep greenish black, its back riding high above the waterline and half again as long as the ship.


6:32 a.m. (ship time) – Thursday, October 26, 1933
Pacific Ocean
Heavy snow in early morning followed by still clear dawn.
Noon position 167 degrees 44' E, 63 degrees 50' S

By morning on the 26th, the promised storm has not arrived. The ship veers southward once more, in flurries of heavy snow, past widely scattered ice floes. Shortly after noon the barometer plummets further. Within an hour it has fallen lower than any of the scientists have ever seen before. A solid wall of black clouds pours from the southwest with breathtaking speed, falling on the ship in a wave of howling wind and spray.

The vessel is caught in the grip of a terrible storm.

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Job. (the tortured one)

Iceberg Photo Note,I desaturated the color in the photo of the green iceberg, but couldn't resist leaving some color in even though there was no color photography in the 1930's. I also tried changing the photo to pure black-and-white, but the end result wasn't nearly as interesting.

[Mr. Handy]

Katie does what she can to assist the sailors and help prepare the ship to weather the storm.

[aine]

Martin takes two rolls of the monsters, wishing he could capture the eery green colour. When the storm arrives, he scurries back to his cabin and ties himself into his bed.

[Job]

Vicious gusts clutch at the booms and wires, hammer open doors, and threaten to tear away wood and canvas covers before they can be battened down. Immense waves rise high overhead, crashing down across the decks with hollow thundering booms. The wind has an ominous sound and is noticeably rising with every hour.

The Gabrielle shudders with every attack, heeling and plunging deep into the gray Antarctic waters. Men suffer and struggle in the engine room and on the bridge, trying desperately to bring her bow around before the ship is torn apart by the force of the storm. It is all but impossible to stand; walking without handholds is out of the question.

All around, the air is full of the screams and groans of the tortured ship as its metal plates are stressed in every direction at once. Above decks the rain sweeps in horizontally from the south, carrying with it hail and sleet that scours flesh and shatters glass. The dogs, helpless in their cages aft, scream and howl in terrified confusion, adding to the cacophony above.



The storm does not cease. Time seems distorted, composed of seconds individually endured until they merge into minutes and minutes finally grow into hours. And through it all there is the voice of the wind, shrieking as you have never heard it shriek before in all your lives. Again and again, the bow disappears beneath the wall of waves. Time after time watery hammer-blows slam against the superstructure and cover the bridge windows in rime.

Below decks, expedition members huddle miserably in the lounges or in their cabins, clutching bowls and basins and moaning in distress. The ship's galley is awash with water from pots swept off the stove, but the cook and his messboys struggle to prepare a hot meal for those most hardy of souls who are able to fight the weather.

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Job. (the tortured one)