A bit out of sequence, but here are some of the things the Amsterdam had to do to bring us to Antarctica.
1. They had to change the fuel the ship uses. We're now running on a lighter-weight diesel that pollutes less and will evaporate instead of concealing in case of a leak or a sinking.
2. They took on board a specialist in ice. The ice pilot, who has been here over a hundred times on cruise ships, is one of the narrators during the day and has given several public talks on such topics as ice and the International Antarctic Treaty, under which all countries agree not to exploit the continent and not to make war on one another here. It is not, alas! an "in perpetuity" agreement. It's already been renewed once, but I get the sense that the peace is somewhat fragile, and all it would take would be the discovery of a major oil deposit to make it null and void.
3. As we entered the Southern Ocean, the Captain told us, "We're just going to wing it, " and today we found out what that means. He said we will have to revise tomorrow's course because the planned route is so iced up that we couldn't hope to get through. They must keep in frequent communication with the various research stations so they don't have to find out about such things by sailing into them.
And today is an historic occasion: for the first time in recent memory, I had a chocolate dessert that I couldn't finish. It appeared on the dessert menu as "big chocolate cake", and it lived up to its billing. Dear God that was good!
I had heard of the complaints about fuel used by cruise ships, and glad they change it at least for Antarctica. Must be that it's less efficient for the ship's engines, or they'd be using it more often. I wish they would.
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