In my fathers dreams

In my father's dream there was the future of mankind and his life.

He could see with clarity the path of the hard working and righteous, and he knew that he was one of those few.

My father, his work and his passion for peace to all men and women took him to wild and remote areas where his visions and willingness to serve the betterment of mankind shone out.

My father loves his family, his wife, his children, and he also accepted and showed that same love to outsiders who needed a true, peaceful love that he was willing to share.

In my life I have seen strong qualities in me that come from that man, my father, I am different but there are some characteristics' that can't be hidden, the genes are the genes, I hope that I have achieved with honour half of what my father has.

The turning cycles of life seems long, but come very fast, I can still remember holding and playing with my father's hands in church, running my fingers over his strong but line worn palms in wonder at how strong and large they were. I was five then, and I look forward to seeing my father again so that he can play the same game on mine at 50.

Stephen

The Ache

The Ache

To cross the Drake and head south to the "Freezer" there are good and bad forecasts, weather systems and seas, but when there's ice in the Drake and the fogs low to the sea, it chills your feet, it makes your face numb with the dank cold, your teeth chatter and your jaw aches with looming anticipation.

When the dawn light creeps through the hatch window at 3am you know you are in Antarctica and its summer, the tiredness is still there and the aches of the passage.

But the immense pleasures of being in this white wonderland, where the moods of the mountains and glacier fields can only be described as mystical fantasy lands, but you are there, and it is very real, so fast you have forgotten those aches.

The constant cold temperatures makes the skin on your hands thick, it's your bodies way of building a protective layer, but this takes time to form, and the cold makes you ache.

The stealth ice that creeps around the bays and harbours never stops or eases its search for a calm spot as its life as a piece of ice is limited, the long sleepless nights where your head never rests deeply on the pillow the impact of ice always makes you ache.

The smiles on every person face as they watch in wonder at the great beasts of the water lift their heads to the sky to view us tiny creatures on a boat makes you marvel, enough to make your heart ache.

At the end of the day, as the light dims but never ends in summer Antarctica, you hope and silently prey that the location for the night will be safe and protected, the sinews in your neck always ache.

To see the way that nature's animals survive in the wild, the strong will survive, the slow, sick or weak are on borrowed time, the sight of death tears at your heart, and it aches.

But when the time is done, and the weather gods present a window, there can be no hesitation, the drug of Antarctica when the sun shines is powerful, to leave there are aches, to wait and play will inevitably make you ache far more.

Stephen

The morning after

I often find that I can't write, or maybe I shouldn't write unless it feels write.

The morning after has taken some time to come around after doing the hydrographic project here in Antarctica. This project took a lot, not just of myself but also of everyone that was involved, on the boat and on shore.

It's hard to explain "Why" it took a lot, but it did, and for everyone that was involved I do thank you from the bottom of my heart.

We did what many people said we couldn't do, and that's a nice feeling to have when you do actually achieve that goal, but for me it's not the reason why I pushed on with dogged determination, there were very real and important reasons in my mind as to why this had to be done.

Even now I still sit and think about where this could potentially lead, not just for myself but those who are looking at the results and the obvious potential for this style and type of hydrographic work in any remote and unsurveyed area of the world, and there is a lot of areas out there.

Our little planet has become small, but yet there is so much that is still left to discover and know about it. We are told of the horror projections for population expansion over the next 50 years, we are reminded of the damage that the past and current population is doing to our nest, but yet in the name of science and intelligent management of this spinning globe there is so much that we don't know about it, and most importantly how to manage it best for all future generations.

I only see the small example of what we were able to do down here in Antarctica last month as a tiny reminder that dreams and desires can be made into reality. Let's not ever think that something new can't be done. As we have developed sophisticated skills and technologies, we have also developed
debilitating bureaucratic processes and protective plans that can actually make us less efficient, productive and innovative.

For me, I despise the "C" word, because the word "can't" means that someone has already passed the thinking stages of maybe, could be, possibly and yes, and has taken an easier route by putting a potentially good idea into the too hard basket.

Stephen

Hydro Antarctica

Only one thing to say as we head back across the Drake.

Awesome !

Drakeonian Explorer's

Drakeonian Explorer's

You cant help but wonder how early explorers from the late 1700's through until early 1900's coped with the hard ship of the frozen south, I think of them often, like now mid way across the Drake Passage.

Even today with all the modern equipment on board and incredible protective HL wet weather gear with goretex layers, you cant for a moment wonder what those poor sods felt like and that they even had any fingers or toes left after a voyage to the "Freezer" as we often call it, remarkable endurance and fortitude.

For the team on Xplore heading south for our special project its important that I give thanks and acknowledgment to them all, at the start and I am sure at the finish.

Crew:

Meghann Jones, Australian (culinary whiz)

Debbi Smith, Scotland (trooper with a sandy wit)

Hydrography

Fernando Landeta, hydrography technician,Chilean (cant help but smile)

Yoann Boulaire, hydrographer Shom, France (so hydro, he was probably born on  the sea floor)

Observers.

Alesia Ramanenka, Belaurus (quietly knowing)

Ugo Angelelli, Italy (Mr history with gizzmo's)

John Clark, Australia (Irish and infectious)

Thanks team, so no matter what or how much we acheive, the journey and experience is what truly counts, because we are out here doing it.

Stephen Wilkins, skipper and expedition leader, Australian (where there's a Wilkins, there's a way)

 

Ready Test Go

Xplore has maybe been silent from news in the last two months, but we have certainly not be dormant.

Late in October just prior to leaving Valdivia in Chile I happened by chance to meet a commercial diver who visited Xplore as he was an interested sailor and wanting to buy some parts that we had no more use for.

In conversation as we drove into town, I asked what type of work he did, diving on industry pipe lines, inspections and.............. hydrographic surveys there in Chile.

Within the short 15 minute drive I couldn't stop asking him questions about the type of gear that they were using and his experience, like a kid in a lolly shop stuffing his face full of sweets, I couldn't get enough information or ask the questions fast enough.

We ended the drive in town, and I had explained what I had been trying to organize for over 3 years, but which was a dream and a plan that I had carried for more than 10 years, and that was to mount a private hydrographic survey in Antarctica.

Since late October we have been busy, too much so, but with good reason, we have just departed Ushuaia in Argentina, and we are heading for Antarctica. On board Xplore we have 8 people and some very special equipment, and we are going to go to Antarctica to survey.

The project is an initial test to see if a little old sailing boat called Xplore can do what the big boys of the hydrographic industry do, and that is to data collect and produce an accurate survey of the ocean sea floor using the latest in modern hydrographic survey equipment. This is a world first, not just in Antarctica, but truly in the world, because no one has ever hung $280,000 dollars worth of high tech equipment off the bow of a sailing yacht and been treated with credibility.

We have with us some very clever people, Fernando who is the Chilean hydrographic company who we have teamed up with, but also Yoann who is from France is is a certified naval hydrographer who has been loaned to us to from Shom (France's hydrographic agency) who will qualify and certify that the survey work that we will do meets the highest of international standards in hydrography as set down by the IHO.

We have carried out sea trials and calibration testing whilst here in Ushuaia and everything seems to all go, the support of many countries within the hydrographic community has been great, Shom there in France, NZ,

Australia and UK, along with some great help from a good captain and friend on National Geographic Explorer we feel that we as prepared as ever we will be.

We are all excited, and just a little bit nervous about the project, we all want to do something very special here, and to prove that it is possible, because survey work in Antarctica is needed, only 2 % of the Antarctic coast line is currently surveyed.

To have a dream that you see through to fruition is going to be for me very sweet and satisfying, even though over the last 3 years many many doors have been closed and I have been told so many times that it is ridiculous to think that a small sailing yacht can do what the navy's and commercial hydrographic ship of the world get employed to do.

Time will tell ?

Stephen

Along came......

Along came.........

At 5am am on Sunday morning we docked at the commercial pier in Punta Arenas in Chile, along side one of the huge ocean going commercial tugs that service the shipping that goes through the Straits of Magellan and the southern waters, nothing too fancy but quiet and stopped.

But 6am I was at the newly build reception rooms of the public hospital of Punta Arenas, there was only an old man sleeping in a line of chairs that could seat 100 people, a nice warm place as even in November Punta Arenas can be bitterly cold when it chooses.

By 6.15am and some interrogation by a young intern, I hear him talk to the medical staff that he had a gringo who had a bit of a problem, laughter and chatter in Spanish as to whom was going to see the victim made it very apparent that it had been a long, slow and boring night.

By 6.20am it was quite clear to the doctor at hand, an experienced naval surgeon that this was not a laughing matter.

He told me that the local anaesthetic was going to hurt, but the first sting of the needle made me cringed but as he slid the needle deeper and deeper into my skin and flesh I screamed, bloody hell ! what's the rest of this going to be like I wondered.

After a short while to let the drugs kick in he then started then started to cut, it felt like someone tearing at the top of a can of vegetables with a pull ring that needs a final grand tug to get it open, shit I screamed again

even though I was already feeling wimpish from my first yelp.

Ah Stephen, this is not what you think, this is one of the most impressive cases of this that I have seen the doctor tells me. At this stage, all of his team of nurses and students are lined up around me sharing thoughts of medical knowledge and others having a quiet chuckle about how they would hate to have this problem themselves, how embarrassing !

The surgeon then continued to cut, he went in with a circular motion to take a large tubular core out of me, this I definitely didn't expect, as my own diagnosis on board had visions quite different.

He proudly showed me the core of flesh which he cut, black, dead and lifeless, hmm what can you say, but thanks.

By 7.15 am I was loaded up with enough drugs, anti-imflamatories and antibiotics to kill a horse.

The problem had started after a day and a half after leaving Valdivia to head south to Tierra del Fuego, I noticed that on my left buttocks that there was the start to an annoyingly large pimple. After a day or so more and regular tea tree oil, the problem was getting much worse.

I have never had a boil or abscess on my buttocks, salt water boils in arms and the neck but this was really talking it to extremes. The days wore on and the pain and size of the abyss was unbelievable. The crew saw me cringe with pain as we sailed the boat or sat down, the boat movement wouldn't allow me to sleep, every wave woke the partial sleep that I was meant to be enjoying.

After four days of pain I had to share the problem, Meghann offered to have a look as she had had a bad infection before on her leg. Well the look on her face was not of joy when she saw what was on my ass, but she managed it well and agreed that it was bad, Nic in hearing the talk ducked around the corner to peak and in a good old Kiwi way, said "Struth mate that must hurt".

I searched through all our medical books and check the stocks of all the different antibiotics on board and came up with a choice of a strong penicillin based antibiotic to heal and rid my poor ass of this infernal

infection.

The days went on and the size grew and grew, with your hand fully stretched out it would only just reach the sides of this massive raised infection that was so hot and painful and hard. I of course tried to push and squeeze a bit, even knowing that this was not the approved way to deal with a boil or abscess , but the agony and pain was relentless, never stopping, never easing and each movement on board made it worse.

A strange sick side of me wanted to know more about it so we took a photo, it was scary, it looked more like a badly swollen breast of a nursing mother who's 2 year old teething son had been gnawing at her nipple (not that I have seen one of these)

We arrived in port and you know the rest, but what the surgeon told me was that it wasn't an abscess at all, other wise there would have been a lot of rubbish and waste exit when he opened me up. But it was a perfect case of a Chilean Spider, called an Arana del Rincon, Corner spider or scientifically Loxosceles Laeta, in Chile they only have two animals that are venomous and both are spiders, and this was one.

Even though they are at their worst or most venomous during spring (yes now in November) they can be lethal if they bit close to a vital organ, glad that they liked my ass ! so who was a lucky boy.

After 2 weeks of 4mg of antibiotics each day and the other drugs it seems to be on the mend, so I chuckle a bit when I remember the nursery rhyme of little Miss Muffet who sat on her tuffet.