Day 2 at sea from South Georgia to Tristan da Cunha

We had the usual Stefan wake-up call, this time adding that we had to put our clocks forward one hour. We are now one hour behind UK time.

Suddenly, we heard this tapping noise outside and saw the window-cleaning equipment being lowered and raised over each window to wash away the salt spray. It was the first time they had been able to do this for several days, because of the storm.

Window cleaning

We went up to have breakfast and joined Chris and Dick. While we were there, Stefan announced that there was a very large tabular iceberg a few miles ahead of the ship. Once again everyone went up on deck to take a look.

Iceberg watching

The first large tabular berg

We were then told there was a much larger tabular berg some miles further on. As we approached it, we were amazed to discover it was 23 miles long!!! Below are a few photos of the iceberg. We could see where large parts of it had broken up and rotated in the water, leaving jagged sections of ice, but there were also huge areas that were as flat as a pancake. It was approximately 50 metres high above the surface of the water.

The gigantic tabular iceberg

Broken sections of the iceberg

Our last views of the iceberg

It took us a couple of hours to sail along its northern side. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. How lucky we were to have sailed so close to it. The crew subsequently learned that it was the remains of a section of the Ross Ice Shelf that had broken free five years previously.

We encountered more much smaller icebergs as we sailed on. It certainly added excitement to the voyage and we were ready for lunch, especially as we had become pretty cold standing on deck for so long. We joined Ken and Michaela and we both had lentil soup to warm us up!

During the afternoon, there was a series of rain squalls and, in between, the sun came out, creating some very pretty rainbows.

We decided to listen to Luke's lecture in our cabin. It was about the two years he spent on South Georgia working at King Edward's Point.

Richard Sidey, Rob and Uli

At 5pm, we went to the theatre to listen to Uli's lecture on animals in the cold regions of the world. He is an excellent lecturer and the talk was both very informative and entertaining at the same time. Exactly what we like to hear!

We returned to our cabin and decided to call Samantha, using the satellite phone that Bob had lent us. We were very concerned to learn that Keely had been taken into hospital as her waters had broken! This was five weeks early!!

Wendy was so worried that she skipped the Venetian Society cocktail party, but I decided to go. At the party, compered by Daniil, he made the usual announcement about the top three Venetian Society passengers and how many days they had spent on board Silversea ships. Herman, from New York, had spent nearly 450 days on cruises with Silversea!

In the evening, we went to the Venetian Society Dinner. We had been invited by Will Wagstaff. At his table were Andy and the Cohens - Kathleen and Larry from Virginia. We wore the masks that had been provided for us, but some people turned up in very elaborate masks and head-pieces. Fred greeted us, dressed again as Milly!!

We had an enjoyable evening, though it was overshadowed by what was happening to Keely in London. We returned to our cabin to see if there were any messages on the satellite phone, but there were none.

We went to bed hoping that we would get good news in the morning.