Sea of Alba­tros­ses and wind

Sun
8 Feb
2015

In case the head­line reminds you of the pre­vious blog ent­ry, the­re is a reason for that. It is just how the area is. Our ear­ly mor­ning attempts to land on Camp­bell Island were doo­med by winds of 40-50 knots, it was not even pos­si­ble to keep the ship lon­ger in Per­se­ver­ance Har­bour than just a few moments, let alo­ne drop anchor or even zodiacs. The bay pro­vi­des shel­ter from the wes­ter­ly swell, but chan­nels the wind, making it even stron­ger than it is out­side.

Con­side­ring near win­dy 30 hours spent off Camp­bell Island, time run­ning out and a fore­cast not giving much reason to be opti­mi­stic, the­re is not much choice but taking off, back to the high seas, and set­ting cour­se for Bluff, our next and last stop, in New Zea­land. Camp­bell Island was not meant to be, or, as a fel­low tra­vel­ler put it so nice­ly: it is the pri­vi­le­ge of an island to say ‘no’.

The fol­lo­wing day at sea was a bit of a rol­ler-coas­ter ride. Rocks on the road. But tho­se who live here don’t use cars or bicy­cles, and they don’t walk. Natu­re has equip­ped them with the most ele­gant and effi­ci­ent wings and they gli­de wit­hout effort shar­ply over waves that keep some of us from enjoy­ing their break­fast. More than a dozen Roy­al alba­tros­ses keep cir­cling around the ship, approa­ching every cou­ple of minu­tes to the delight of tho­se who stay out­side as if they were glued to the deck. Regu­lar­ly, eyes and came­ras go up, when the lar­ge royals of the winds and their smal­ler rela­ti­ves (sub­jects?) come near, as litt­le lunar objects around our litt­le pla­net, the ship Ort­eli­us, see­mingly fol­lo­wing Kepler’s laws.

For a few pre­cious moments, we even have the plea­su­re to enjoy this with the gol­den sun dis­ap­pearing behind some low clouds in the evening.