The contrasts could not be stronger. There are the easily defined things - 24 hours of daylight in the southern hemisphere, short days with little sunshine in the northern hemisphere. Fresh food down the street in the supermarket, compared to the long life food stuffs from the long trip. And stable ground!

And then there are the memories that are not so much about comparison, but simply about the experience. The vastness of the Southern Ocean. The endless beauty and diversity of icebergs. The majestic seabirds gliding over the churning ocean.. The sense of truly being at the end of the earth.

The whalers turned north last year after two days of harassment, and sailed in to a storm. As we headed away from the Antarctic coast, the weather turned for the worst, and as we sat down to Christmas dinner, we held on to our plates and anything else that could move. By Boxing Day [Editor's note -- Commonwealth countries refer to the 26th December as Boxing Day. There are lots of arguments as to why, here are some of them. Insert a piratical exclamation of surprise where necessary ;-)] we faced waves ten metres high. The bridge of the Sunrise sits only 9.5 metres above the waterline, so these big waves had a particularly intimidating feel about them.

Despite the weather, Christmas on board was a great experience. Each crew member had drawn a name from the hat a few weeks earlier for the person they were to provide a Christmas gift for. And the gifts were superb – many people had hand-made gifts on board with whatever they could find, combining creativity and care to produce memorable results.

Emilse and Isha, our cooks on board, produced a dinner that felt lavish, even if my appetite continued to suffer the impacts of sea sickness! The host of nationalities on board meant that we shared many different traditions, and swapped tales of previous festive seasons spent in many different ways.

And perhaps the best Christmas present for us all was that no whales were being killed. In running from us, the whalers had stopped their hunting, and then the bad weather we struck meant hunting was impossible. So while most of us were violently ill, at least the whales had a peaceful Christmas in 2005. Now we just need to ensure that every
Christmas is peaceful for the whales of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

We are again on our way to the Southern Ocean this hunting season to defend the whales. If you want to join the expedition, just click here, and remember to take action and do your bit. You don’t have to spend Christmas in the Southern Ocean to make a difference for the whales.

--Shane