Our Antarctica adventure certainly wasn’t without drama and incident, and unfortunately we had a minor accident on our trip. We had arrived back on our ship and were in and around King George Island in the South Shetland Islands when we had an emergency.
I am well used to understanding emergencies on board boats, having worked on boats as a steward, having my own muster number. Those who have worked on a boat or ship will know that the customers and passengers safety is the number one priority. Above anything else. We’re not there to get your car on, give you duty free and serve you coffees. We are there to make sure you get to your destination safely. It was early evening and the Antarctica trip had been immense so far and without incident.
We were due for a late afternoon arrival in the area at Admiralty Bay on King George Island. Rumours had spread round the boat that this was our actual LAST landing of the Antarctica adventure so everyone was in HIGH spirits. I was quite simply buzzing as my room mate Mark and I planned a wee tipple to toast on arrival at Admiralty Bay so we could have a toast to each other and a wee drink while standing on Antarctic soil. Then we went out on deck to check out the amazing views and we heard a CODE OSCAR.
I totally misheard the announcement and actually thought they were calling a member of crew to the reception, but in actual fact it was a man overboard situation. We had anchored in Admiralty Bay and two of our fantastic crew, Scobie and John Kernan had got into a Zodiac to go and check out our landing point in Admiralty Bay. This was standard procedure by the way.
